Reformation of The Demigod Army
by SeaweedBrain314
Summary: The sequel to Chronicles of the Demigod Army, my first story; after the events of the first story, a mysterious powerful baby demigod appears. The mysterious Friends of Nature is trying to save the Earth... by destroying all of humanity.
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER ONE**

**Calvin/Kien: A Surprise**

After the election of the new president, (a known half-blood) a new division of the government was created, the Department for the General Welfare and Protection of Demigods, or DGWPD, which really wasn't catchy at all. It didn't matter, it was a secret division, known only by demigod members of the president's staff, and of course, the agents of the division. Personally, we always referred to ourselves by our old title, the Demigod Army. The job came with government salary, benefits, and insurance. There wasn't much reason to insure me, though. I had basically no family to leave the money to. My mortal father was devoured about seven years back, and I had no siblings. I had nobody… nobody but her. Well… she had me, anyway.

"So how's your life been?" she asked, that captivating smile spreading across her face.

"Eh, it's been okay," I shrugged. "Not much good, not much bad."

We were walking in Central Park, two friends catching up after so long apart. With high school over, camp expanding, and the government agency in need of organizing, all of the half-bloods had been called back to New York and Camp Half-Blood. It was good to see the old faces again. It was nice to see some changes, some things the same, and new love sprinkled over the place. It was also nice to see that my feelings for her were fading, so that the fact that my feelings weren't returned didn't burn with the pain of a thousand birthday candles.

"No special someone?" she asked.

I chewed my gum. "Nope."

She laughed. "Me neither."

"The camp's getting full," I noted. "More construction's on the way. They're planning on building a camp in the west, too."

"Does that mean you're going to stay there instead?" she asked.

I tilted my head and smiled sadly. "Probably. I don't know if I'll ever be back here."

"You're gonna visit, right?"

"I don't know… maybe."

She stopped abruptly and folded her arms across her chest. "What do you mean _maybe_?"

"I don't know if I'll have time, I guess," I said uncertainly.

"Make time," she said curtly. "It's not that hard."

"It hurts to be back," I confessed suddenly. "Seeing you, and knowing… knowing…"

"What?" she demanded. "That you're going to have to leave again? That's LIFE. You should know that by now."

That isn't what I wanted to say, I thought. "I know that."

"Then what's the matter? Just tell me."

"I… I can't…"

"Come on, it's me, Thuyvy," she said, her voice softening. "You can tell me _anything_, you should know that."

"Not this time," I sighed, hanging my head. And never again, I added silently.

"Why not?"

"I can't tell you that."

"Is it really that deep? Too deep for _me_?"

I turned sharply to her, my anger, so long repressed, rising. "It's been seven bloody years, and you _still_ don't know. What's wrong with you? It's been so long, so bloody obvious! And somehow you just don't understand, you just don't see." I let out a ragged breath and walked to a tree, resting my arm and head on it. When the hand rested on my shoulder, I tensed.

"Is it something I did?" her soft voice asked.

"Yes." I answered immediately. "I mean no. I mean yes, but not really… sort of. Don't apologize. It doesn't make a difference."

"I told you not to do this," she frowned at me. "I told you not to bottle up your feelings around me. Just let it all out. You'll feel better."

"And you'll feel worse," I muttered. "Just forget that this ever happened."

"What if I don't want to?"

"It'll be better if you do. Better for you, better for me."

"I don't think that…" she broke off abruptly. "Is it… is it snowing?"

My head jerked skyward, scanning the air. I twitched slightly. It never snowed in the summer. There was only one explanation: it was a warning from the gods that something was amiss. I knelt to the ground, transforming my bracelet into its bow form. I unzipped the girly-looking pencil bag in my pocket, turning it into a quiver, and slinging it over my shoulder. I scanned every tree, every bench for possible enemies. Oddly enough, there was nobody else around. It was just the two of us… and a bundle of cloth on a park bench.

"Is that what I think it is?" Thuyvy whispered to me, crouching down next to me.

I glanced quickly at her. "If you're thinking that it's a trap, then probably."

"A baby!" she hissed. "Its mother might have abandoned it."

"I still think that it's a trap," I sighed. "So you want to check it out?"

But she was already running towards the park bench through the building snow. I sighed, shook my head, and followed slowly after her, making sure that no monsters were around. By the time that I arrived at the bench, Thuyvy was rocking the bundle in her arms and shivering.

"Calvin," she whispered with teary eyes, holding out the bundle of cloth to me. "How could anyone leave her here?"

I glanced at the little baby, and my heart almost melted. Its tiny hands were clenched in fists, as if about to punch somebody. Its small face was serene and tranquil. The Apollo instinct told me that she was extremely powerful, despite her appearance. Despite that knowledge, I couldn't help but feel sorry for the little lass. "Bloody Hades," I sighed out loud. I felt a slight prickling of the hairs on the back of my neck. Very calmly, I asked, "Thuyvy, are you armed?"

"I've got my knife," she replied weakly.

"Good enough," I muttered. "We need to find someplace safe. We're already being followed." There was a very audible howl somewhere in the near distance. "We need to get somewhere fast. Do we have any safe houses anywhere near here?"

"I know a place," she said quickly. "It's a few blocks away."

"Well what are you waiting for?" I demanded. "Get going!"

"What?" she asked, confused. "You aren't coming?"

"I can't let them track you to wherever you're going," I said, shaking my head. "You're going to have to go it alone."

"We went over this once last year," she glared at me. "I am _not_ going to leave you anywhere, got that? Listen, this kid, whoever she is, seems really powerful. I'd bet the monsters can sense her no matter how much you detour them. We stand a better chance if we just stick together. Come on, you promised me you wouldn't do anything stupid."

"That was only until the next time I saw you," I muttered. "But I suppose you have a point. Let's go. You lead, I have no idea where we're going. I'll cover your back."

She nodded, and started running towards the street. I followed suit, taking one last glance behind to make sure nothing was directly following us. To my surprise, there was nothing. It was unsettling how nothing was following us… at least… not visibly. The howl in the near distance was coming from somewhere, and it was getting closer. I sped up, hoping that this snowy summer day would not be my last.

**Michael: No Surprise**

I was restocking the safe house with additional arrows, more canned goods, some fresh vegetables, and some more ambrosia when there was a knock on the door. At first, I doubted what I was hearing. Nobody other than demigods were supposed to know about this place. But hearing the knocking persist, I moved towards the door, I picked up one of my swords, holding it behind me as I peeked through the little hole in the door. To my utter unamazement, there stood Calvin, Thuyvy, and a newborn baby. I blinked twice, then opened the door, a bemused expression on my face.

"I thought it took nine months for this to happen," I said the moment I opened the door. "You've been back for what? Three days?"

"This is not what it looks like," Calvin said, motioning Thuyvy to get into the room. I noticed that he was clutching his right arm with his left hand, red liquid trailing down to his fingertips and bow. It didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened. "Close the bloody door, before something gets in."

"And what would that be?" I asked with a raised eyebrow, shutting the door and locking it.

"Monsters," he replied curtly in his natural British accent. "They've been bloody following us since we found the little bundle o' joy. They actually bloody ambushed us before we got here. Bloody hellhounds." He removed his hand and examined his cut arm. "I think I need a shot of nectar."

"Whoa there," I said, raising my hands up. "Slow down. Now, what happened?"

"Well, we were in the park," Thuyvy began, sitting down in a chair, rocking the little baby. "Then it started to snow. Of course, it's weird, so we started looking around for something wrong, and we saw this." She gestured to the little bundle in her arms.

"Then the monsters started following us," Calvin said from the refrigerator. "Here's the nectar. Anyway, we made it about half-way here when the hellhounds ambushed us. I dispatched all of them, but they got me in the bloody arm." He took a swig from the bottle of nectar. "That's bloody good stuff."

"Calvin, are you drunk?" I asked quickly. He glared at me.

"No. I'm not."

"You seem a bit loopy."

"I get that way after I make it all the way to a safe house with my bloody arm blood cut by a bloody ambush!"

"…Sure."

He sighed deeply, slowly eased himself into a chair, using his uninjured arm. I noticed that his bow had turned back into its bracelet form, and his quiver had disappeared. He continued to hold the nectar bottle in his left hand as he lowered himself into the seat. He was almost exactly the same as before he had left, with his short naturally spiky hair and British accent.

"We're going to need to get through to Chiron for this," he said suddenly. "Do we have a car or something? We have to get to camp."

"Not as far as I know of," I shrugged. "We might have to call someone in."

At that moment, there was a knock at the door. Then I heard a key insert into the lock, and the door opened, revealing two blonde girls. "Is anybody here?"

"Bloody Hades, Haley," Calvin sighed, lowering the bow he seemed to have pulled out a few seconds ago. "I bloody near shot you."

"Uh… it's okay, it's just me," the girl with the long blonde hair said, with her hands raised in a classic "Don't shoot!" position. Her eyes drifted to where Thuyvy sat, holding the baby. Her eyes widened, as she looked back and forth between Calvin and Thuyvy. "I… Kien… you… how did you…? I thought it took nine months…"

"Relax, Haley," he sighed, motioning her to sit down. "It's not anything near what it looks like. You should come in, too, Xenia. That door's no good if it's open."

The other girl stepped in, closed, and locked, the door. I noticed that her hair was short, curling around her ears. Her hands were folded across her chest and there was a staff on her back.

"New acquaintances?" I asked Calvin.

"You could say that," he sighed. "This is Haley and Xenia. I met them while back in the bear."

"I see…" I said with a raised eyebrows and a slight smile spreading across my face. "Are they fangirls?"

He glared at me and put his bottle of nectar down. "Don't make me kill you, Michael." Then he turned to the new arrivals. "I take it you have a car or other mode of transport?"

"Actually, Dad drove us here," Haley explained. "He's waiting for you guys to come down. There's apparently some kind of emergency…" she glanced at the small baby. "Involving a small child."

Calvin glanced out the window, and I saw his jaw drop. "We got the Sun Chariot to pick us up?"

**Georgie: The Challenge Begins**

I was soooo bored! There was almost nobody to talk to around the camp! I spent an hour looking for Rachel, but I couldn't find her _anywhere_. I did have some half-sisters that were pretty cool, but they all had boyfriends already, and were hanging out with them instead of with me. So I sat on the dock and stared out into the lake. All of the cute guys _already_ had girlfriends… a lot of those were my sisters. Grumble, grumble.

Anyway, I was pretty miserable, when the flying tank landed on top of the lake, and drove across the top of the water to the edge of the lake, where it stopped. It shined golden and pretty… just like my nails. Whoever drove that thing had to be a total hottie… hopefully, without a girlfriend. When Kien came out of the top, I was, needless to say, very, very disappointed. He looked around for a moment, then reached his hand in to help a familiar looking girl out of the top. She was clutching onto a suspicious looking little bundle of clothing. After she came out, Haley did, followed by Xenia, followed by some dark-haired cutie with glasses I didn't even know. I saw a head pop out of the top, and I heard him say… something. The cute guy nodded, and they all got off of the tank, back onto solid ground, that is, except for the guy in the tank. He ducked back into the tank and backed up onto the lake, then took off and flew back into the sky.

I saw a girl with sort of long black hair rush over to meet them from the cabins area. I heard her yell, "Calvin!" Then she paused. "Whoa! I thought it took nine months!"

"It isn't like that, Kristy," Kien sighed.

I wanted to talk to the cute guy, and I wanted to know what on Earth was going on… so I stood up from the dock and walked over there. I was soon right next to the girl with the long black hair, and Kien saw me.

"Oh, hey, Georgie, what's up?" he said, noticing me.

I didn't say anything to him, because my eyes had drifted over to the familiar looking girl, and I gasped, realizing who it was. "Oh my gosh, Kien! Is this…" I racked my brain, trying to remember her name. "Is this Thuyvy?"

He blinked four times. "Yeah."

I turned to her. "You're sooo pretty in real life!"

"Um, you know me?" she asked, a bit nervously.

"Of course I know you," I said. "I've heard so much about you!"

Her eyes drifted over to Kien. "From Calvin?"

"From Kien," I corrected her.

"So, new name, _and_ new friends, huh, Cal?" the total cutie asked Kien.

"I guess so," Kien sighed.

I suddenly saw the little bundle in Thuyvy's hands for what it was… the most adorable little baby ever! "Oh my gosh, it's sooo cute! I thought it took nine months!"

Kien slapped his forehead with his hand. "Somebody shoot me right now. Please."

"I think you need to get to the Big House," Xenia said firmly, directing Kien away, followed by Thuyvy and Haley. This left me with the girl with the longish black hair, and the total cutie.

"Seriously, I thought it took nine months. I don't buy the story that they found her in a park," the long-haired girl said suddenly.

"I don't really, either," agreed the cutie. Even if he did have glasses, it made him all the cuter. "And besides, it looks just like Calvin."

"I think it looks more like Thuyvy," the girl disagreed. "Who finds newborn babies in parks anyway?"

"Calvin and Thuyvy," the cutie laughed. "They find it after they…" he made some weird hand motions. "Yeah…"

"Um… sure, Michael," she said uncertainly.

"Your name is Michael?" I asked the cutie.

"Um… yeah," he replied in his deep, manly voice. "Who are you?"

"My name is Georgie," I said, quickly shaking his hand. It felt sort of weird, and his hands were HUGE! "I'm Kien's friend. Do you have a girlfriend?"

"…No," he said. I just totally scored right there.

"I'm gonna go now," the girl said abruptly.

"Bye, Kristy," Michael said as she ran back towards the rows and rows of cabins. I watched her go, then quickly turned back to Michael.

"So what do you like to do?" I asked him.

"Hack into the Kennedy Assassination Files," he replied slowly. "I gotta go now."

He walked away quickly, and I let the breath I was holding go. He was so funny, so smart, so, so, so CUTE! I _had_ to have him. I spotted Rachel walking around somewhere with Ashey and Calvin. I had to, had to, had to, had to tell her all about this new find.

**Xenia: I Don't Believe One Word of It**

"So this is the baby," Chiron said gravely, sitting in his wheelchair. "This is the child that may bring so much destruction to this planet."

"She's barely born," Kien protested. "She can't do much damage… can she?"

"Not at the present moment," Chiron sighed, stroking his beard and setting the baby on his lap. "However, the oracle has told us about this coming, and it isn't good."

"You mean Red?" Kien asked. He glanced quickly at the baby and at Thuyvy. "I guess if she says so, it has to be true… it is subject to misinterpretation, though."

"I am aware of that," Chiron said wisely. "That is why the gods have not destroyed her yet. She may be useful to their plans… if she is willing to listen to their views."

"She's only…" Thuyvy glanced at Kien. "How old is she?"

"She is… three weeks, five days…" he frowned in thought. "Seven hours, three minutes, forty seconds old."

I did a double-take. "How do you know that?"

He shrugged. "Magic."

"How do you know that and it _not _be yours?" I asked, suspiciously.

"It is a _she_," he corrected indignantly. "And I know because my grandpa was the god of prophecy, and he knows things. You could have asked Haley and she would have known… probably, possibly… maybe."

"Riiight," I said skeptically. "So how exactly did you 'find' this little girl?"

"We've already gone through this," Kien sighed. "But okay. We were in the park and we were kind of sort of having a little disagreement. But then it started snowing, so we think something's wrong. The next thing that we know, we find the kid, a hellhound starts howling somewhere, and we run all the way to the safe house, where we met Michael. Everything falls together after that, you should know what happened."

"I still don't believe a word of it," I confessed.

"You don't really have to," he snapped. "We know it's true, and that's good enough."

"That's enough," Chiron scolded sharply. "This is no time to be bickering amongst ourselves. We now have the most powerful mortal in the camp, we must be ready for an attack." He turned to Haley and I. "I take it you do not yet know the emergency protocols?"

I was taken aback. "Emergency protocols?"

"You should talk to Michael," Chiron advised us. "He's the head of security under Argus, and he should be able to make a place for you." He turned to Kien and Thuyvy. "I'm reinstating your old ranks. Your current task is to make sure that the child is protected, safe, and comfortable here. Both of you, that is." I saw a kindly, wise, and slightly humored smile playing on his lips. I smiled too. I could appreciate what he was doing, even if Calvin and Thuyvy couldn't.

I nudged Haley, and motioned for us to go. She shrugged, and we left the Big House.

The moment we were out, I asked her, "Do you believe them?"

"Well…" she said in her pondering voice. "I can tell you for a fact that that little girl's mother abandoned her in that park at two-thirty and fifty-three seconds today… so I guess I believe them."

"Seriously, how do you people know that?" I demanded. "It's almost as if you just made it up out of nowhere!"

"Uh… I don't know," she said uncertainly. "I just know…"

I was going to yell at her when I saw Michael walking quickly from the lake area, and Haley and I walked to intercept him. The moment he spotted us, he slowed down. I recognized him from the safe house and the flying tank ride, except I noticed that he was wearing a sword and a small sidearm on his hip.

"Chiron told us to talk to you about the emergency protocols," Haley explained the moment he was in speaking distance.

"Oh… well, I guess we could spread our forces out a bit more on the East side," he pondered to himself. "Or maybe we need more defenders around the Big House. I think I need to discuss this with Argus. This might be only temporary, but we need to change some things…" he slowly drifted off. "I think what's best is if you just follow your cabin-mates or one of them, or something like that. I'll discuss things with Argus and Annabeth, and then we'll see if we can figure anything out."

"Where do I go?" I asked. There was no cabin, as far as I could see, for the goddess of darkness.

"Darkness?" he asked rhetorically. "Well, I think Hades is taking you guys in. It's… somewhere in the second set of cabins. It's the one with the Stygian Iron everywhere."

I nodded in acknowledgment. "I guess that makes sense."

"Michael!" there came a call from somewhere a little off as I walked towards my cabin assignment. I turned slightly, and saw a tall blonde girl running up to him. "I've got the new systems installed, and I think we can do a test of them later. We're going to need to change the emergency protocols. And we're supposed to receive a shipment of ammunition around eleven tommorrow morning. I hope we won't need it…"

**Thuyvy: Awkward Much?**

I was in the Big House, in one of the upper rooms, trying to figure out how to be a mother. Being an orphan was tough, you didn't have any little siblings that you watched get changed, or taken care of as children. All I could do was rock the baby. Feeding was something I was going to worry about at a different time. The room was sky blue, with a cradle and a bed. It was pretty plain and simple. It was sort of uncomfortable, but it was okay. The thing that was getting to me was that Calvin and I were guarding this baby… like parents. It was sort of awkward, especially how everyone assumed that it was ours. It didn't make much sense to me. It was like there was some big inside joke that I wasn't in on. I put the baby in the cradle, still sleeping, after all of these hours, and sat down on the bed, burying my face in my hands. It was such a long day.

"Are you alright, dear?" a British accent asked from the door.

I looked up and saw him leaning against the frame of the door. "Yeah, I'm fine."

He frowned slightly. "Are you sure? It's been a crazy day… and things are bound to get crazier." He sighed and sat down next to me, causing the bed to creak a little as he sank into it. "This is so weird."

"You said it," I agreed. "Everywhere people somehow think that she really is our child… it's weird… I mean… we're not like that."

"I know," he said hollowly. "And it should be that way for everyone else, too… I guess people just assume things… a lot."

"They should assume things that make sense," I grumbled. "Like Percy and Annabeth or something." Calvin looked like he'd just been slapped in the face. "Er… is something wrong?" The face disappeared instantly, replaced by a calm face.

"No, everything's fine," he said smoothly. "What could possible be wrong?"

"Don't lie to me," I sighed. "You're horrible at it. Just tell me what's wrong, and we'll fix it together."

"I… maybe later," he said abruptly, getting up and quickly walking out the door. Before he disappeared, I caught a glimpse of his face, absolutely filled to the brim with anguish.

"Calvin…" I said a little too late. There was something wrong with him. I know things were getting weird between us with the whole baby thing, but that didn't exactly call for tears… did it? It seemed unreasonable. There had to be something else. There had to be something deeper than that. I had to find out.

I was looking for him when I heard footsteps somewhere downstairs, and went down to investigate. What I saw stunned me. The meeting room was filled with people. Lying on the ping-pong table was someone I had never seen before. The stranger was tall, with short blonde hair and ripedu p clothing. It was weird to admit, but he was kinda cute.

Many of the members of the army were in the room trying to make something of him. He looked pretty beat up and unconscious. It was as if he had been ambushed before making his way to the safety of the camp.

Within moments, Chiron wheeled into the room. "What happened?" he demanded immediately, his nightcap sliding off his head.

"We were standing guard and he just stumbled into the camp," explained Scott, the sandy-haired kid from Apollo cabin.

"He just stumbled in?" Chiron repeated. "From where?"

"From the woods, sir," Scott said uncomfortably. "I don't know how he got that far in the first place."

"Just to get this out of the way," Calvin said abruptly. "I don't trust him at all. Something feels wrong about this." He was standing towards the back of the room with his arms folded across his chest. I'd nearly forgotten that he had been so upset about something a few moments ago. He looked composed again, but a bit angry.

"I have to agree with Kien on this one," Haley added. "Something is definitely not right."

"I feel you, man," Scott said, slipping into his hippy accent from the past. "I'm getting _bad_ vibes from him, man. Real bad vibes."

"I would like to agree with you," Chiron said, stroking his beard. "However, we cannot deal on a basis of intuition alone, no matter how strong. He _will_ be treated for his wounds, and we will figure out what happened."

"I'll do it," Calvin sighed. "I have some medical skills thanks to my parental background… and I can also keep an eye on him." He glanced quickly at the stranger mistrustfully. "He will be watched _and_ treated, Chiron, don't you worry."

"Very well then," Chiron nodded. "All dismissed."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I'm sorry it's been awhile. I finally managed to find and upload this (I knew I had it) and chapter ten is coming up soon, I promise.**

**CHAPTER TWO**

**ENGLAND**

**Kira: Someone Please**

Alone. Entirely alone, without anyone to understand. Won't somebody please save me from this emptiness? I don't know what to feel, what to think, what to do... I don't know who I am or why I'm here. I know two things: My name is Kira, and I'm the daughter of Thor. Those two will never change. Never, never, never, never.

I sat against the window, with my knees drawn to my chin, watching the rain pelt on my window. Part of my blonde hair flowed over my face, covering my right eye. I laid my cheek against the cool glass, seeking refuge in the sensation alone. A tear rolled down my cheek, with no one to wipe it away, other than myself. Won't someone deliver me from this oblivion? I wondered. Will anyone love me?

From somewhere in the distance, I heard a faint voice say, "When two broken hearts meet, one whole heart is made."

I closed my eyes, willing the words to come true. I felt empty inside, heart-broken. He was after _her_, of course. I watched as he called her beautiful, wonderful, everything he ever wanted. I wished, wished that someone would tell me those things. No one could ever fall for a blonde girl with a fiery temper... and who had been a prostitute just to survive. Sure, it was over, but it didn't change the fact that it had happened. The memories still haunted me, and I shuddered, retreating to my bed with its thick, warm quilt. I wrapped myself in the cloth and fell asleep, wishing, hoping for someone to love me, to hold me... the way that it's supposed to be. Someone who won't see me and get out his wallet. Someone who wouldn't whistle at me on the streets. I wanted someone who would look into my eyes, tell me that he loved me, and mean it.

My dreams were troubled. There was a lot of darkness, with the occasional flash of lightning revealing the entire landscape in one quick flash. I saw men fighting monsters and gods combating giants. There was steel on steel, bronze on iron, and blood all over the ground. Blood golden and red. And I was in the middle of the fight, swinging my sword desperately, trying hard not to die.

"Duck!" somebody forced my head down just as an arrow whizzed by.

"Thanks," I gasped.

He smiled. "It's no problem at all." He wore a modern day army helmet, and was using a bow. He was lightly armored in a heavy battle. It struck me as odd. It was odder how his face reminded me of an angel. It was beautiful, smiling, friendly, and receptive.

"Why are you wearing so little armor?" I asked, suddenly.

"Slows me down," he shrugged. "I don't like it. I'm not too strong, so I can't lift up all of that armor. If I get hit, armor isn't going to help much, anyway."

I winced as a giant sword impaled itself a few inches away from us both, causing him to draw me into his arms, and away from the giant weapon.

"Close call," he breathed.

"So, uh... what's your name?" I asked, even if it was a dream, it was real enough.

He smiled. "Kien. I also go by Calvin. What's yours?"

"Kira," I answered breathlessly. "You want to grab a cup of tea or something sometime?"

"If we survive, I suppose I wouldn't object," he said with a laugh, and pushing my head down from another arrow. "I think I'm supposed to ask _you_, though. I've never really been too good at that, though."

"It's a date?" I asked.

"If this isn't a dream, then yes," he replied, beginning to fire his arrows.

"You know that this is a dream?" I asked. "But that means..."

"Hey, this is my dream," he said jealously. "I can be aware of that, can't I?"

"This is _my_ dream," I corrected. "Got the, mister?"

"I would know, it's my dream."

"It's mine."

"Mine, mate."

"It's mine!"

"No it isn't."

A giant cleaver landing next to me cut our argument short. It was cut shorter as a giant advanced on us with his giant club drawn.

"Crap," Kien blurted out. "Now what?"

"Run?" I suggested.

"Run," he agreed, and we both ran in the opposite direction, laughing so hard that we were crying. Who says you can't have some fun in the middle of a battle? Too bad I could only find that special someone in a dream.

**CAMP HALF-BLOOD, LONG ISLAND**

**Georgie: I meet the God of Love**

I was sitting in a tree with a a pair of binoculars that Kien had let me borrow, even though I didn't tell him what they were for. I went through the terrible risk of ruining my beautiful nails so I could learn more about Michael without him seeing me.

He spent a lot of time with an ugly-looking guy named Bob, and that blonde girl, Annabeth. I didn't like her at all, she was taking away all of my time with Michael. How could anyone stand being near her? She had rolls of blue paper under her arm half the time, and her hair was always in such a mess. She was DISGUSTING. Why was Michael, of all people, standing near her?

"Jealous?" a voice asked suddenly from behind me, nearly causing me to fall out of the tree. I looked back and saw the most adorable little boy with wings and a bow. I wanted to pinch his cheeks!

He turned his head to the side, and his white angel wings fluttered. "Name's Cupid, I'm the god of love."

I gasped, suddenly realizing who the adorable little boy was. "Can you make someone fall in love with me?"

"Depends," he said casually. "What's in it for me?"

"Uh..."

"Sorry, I'm a bit busy," he winked. "Mom has me working a lot. I need something special if I'm going to deviate from schedule."

"Right... so if I give you thirty dollars..."

He waved his hand. "I only take drachmas. It'll set you back fifteen drachmas." He looked me over. "Seems like you don't have any on you at the moment, so... I've got work to do." He turned away from me, pulling out his bow and two arrows. He notched them both at the same time, and aimed in the distance at two people. A few moments later, he let the arrows fly. He whistled, nodding his head. "Double head shot. Not too bad." Then he saw me with my mouth hanging open in fear.

"Love arrows," he explained. "They don't hurt a bit, I swear. They only hit the heart. Seriously, they don't hurt. Yeah... don't get freaked out on me..."

It was too late, because my heart stopped or something, and it all went black but not like the pretty black that dresses are made out of, but like a boring black like going to sleep.

Anyway, the moment that it wasn't dark anymore, the first thing I saw was this brunette kid that I thought was cute last week. He was yesterday's news, especially when I discovered that one of my half-sisters was dating him already.

"She's stabilizing," he called behind him, studying one of the medical machines. He turned to me. "That was quite a fall, Georgie. You're lucky to be alive. Looks like someone up there likes you. Probably Apollo. He _is_ the god of medicines, after all."

"Whoa, Georgie, you okay, lass?" that same familiar, boring, totally uncute British accent asked from the doorway. In an instant, I knew that it was Kien. Why didn't I get any cute visitors, like Michael?

I sighed. "Yeah, I'm fine."

He turned to the brunette kid. "Is she really okay?"

He nodded. "Perfectly fine. Like she only fainted, and didn't fall out of a tree. It's weird."

**Kien/Calvin: Suspicion**

Or maybe not, I thought to myself, the golden love arrow in the quiver slung on my back. Maybe it all made sense... just what was going on with the arrows? I had a very bad feeling that Cupid was up to something, and he was _not_ one of my favourite gods, not by a long shot. If he was involved, then chances are... something with love... and that, 99% of the time, meant something bad for me.

"Well I'm glad you're okay," I managed to say to Georgie as I left the room. There was a mystery afoot. The arrow... I needed answers, but who to talk to? Thuyvy? No. There'd be too many questions, or at least I wouldn't be able to say anything to her... not about love. And with the way I felt, it wouldn't be right to discuss it with her. I needed someone else. Maybe Brynne... it was certainly a possibility, I hoped.

As I left the medical building, I saw two people walking hand in hand. They looked so happy. It was something slightly painful to think about. With those thoughts in mind, I wandered to the archery range. I was getting a bit rusty... and shooting targets helped relieve stress.

I picked up one of the bows there and began shooting at my target. It made me feel good to hit the bullseye every time. It was satisfying to know that the Apollo part of my blood still functioned well, even if the Athena wisdom was slowly failing me. I couldn't allow my heart to take over the way that it was. It wasn't right for a child of wisdom.

On my right, I heard a quick, semi-automatic volley of arrows hitting a target. I looked over and saw an old friend, Brooke shooting her crossbow at a target, with some guy's face taped to it. She had the right idea, with her "So what?" attitude towards rejection. I could learn a thing or two from her. Her long blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail in a cap, and there was a grimace on her face.

I stopped shooting, seeing the poor guy's face being torn apart. Hate and anger were things that I didn't want to feel towards her. I shook my head clear and decided that it was time to seek some advice. I put the bow down and started the search for Brynne. She had to know something.

I was wandering near the pool building when I heard yelling from inside, and I was compelled to wander inside. I didn't head towards the lockers, but rather, walked straight, in the direction of the pool. As I approached, yells and screams from inside grew louder. I opened the doors, and what I saw amazed me. The Ares girls were playing the Aphrodite girls in water polo, and as usual, were playing dirty. There were guys all in the stands, staring. Appropriately, I suppose, considering who was in the pool. There were few men on the face of this Earth who would miss out on seeing Aphrodite girls in bathing suits... I was one of them. As I looked into the stands, I realized that Daniel was not among one of those few people. He was avidly staring. The moment he saw me, he waved innocently and pretended that he wasn't where he was. Then again, I was there, too. I felt out of place.

"Kien!" Brynne called from the pool. "We need a ref!"

**Brynne: Don't Leave**

It's weird when someone is waiting for you right outside of the locker room. It's even weirder when Kien is the one waiting for you.

"Kien!" I scolded. "You do _not_ wait for a girl right outside the locker room. What are you doing, anyway? Did you look in there?"

"No," he said curtly. "We need to talk." He motioned for me to follow as he headed towards the woods. I hesitated. It wasn't like Kien to stand outside the locker room, or to seek me out, one on one. You had to be careful, because a lot of things could change their shape and sizes.

Well... it couldn't hurt to see what he wanted. So, naturally, I followed. We were all the way into the woods before he turned around to talk to me.

"Brynne, what do you make of this?" he asked, handing me a golden arrow with a heart at the end. It was pretty, and felt hot in my hands.

"Um," I tried to think. "A... a love arrow maybe?"

Kien sighed. "I knew it."He turned away from me and faced a tree. "If that really is a love arrow, then... then that means that Cupid has been here, and..." he sighed again, but didn't continue.

"Kien," I said softly, putting my hand on his shoulder. "It doesn't mean anything."

"It does," he whispered, clenching his hand in a fist. "I can feel it. Just like all of those other times. Every other times that it's happened, only... different. Because I know that it didn't come naturally, but it won't change the way that it hurts. Because... because I can't be sure that isn't the way things would have happened anyway."

"Well, that would depend on who it is," I said. If it has to come to using love arrows, then it probably wouldn't have happened."

"Or it could have just sped up the process," he said bitterly. "I haven't had the opportunity to study them yet, but I've heard that they don't work unless there is the potential for love. Like If a gay guy gets shot, and a heterosexual guy, but only the gay will have the feelings. But I'm not sure..."

"Wee-snaw!" somebody yelled from behind me suddenly. I let out a quick scream and turned around to face the person, bumping Kien to the ground with the speed of my turn.

"Daniel?" Kien asked, struggling to his feet. "What the bloody Hell? What are you doing here?"

"She's hot," he said, nodding at me.

"What?" I asked, taken aback. "Um... thanks?"

He focused on Kien. "So, as best friends, do you think that you could... uh..."

"No."

"Fine," he grumbled, walking away. "Be that way."

"I think I will,"Kien grumbled back. As Daniel disappeared, Kien turned to me and smiled. "That was Daniel. He's always like that."

"Was he being serious?" I asked.

Kien thought for a moment. "I have no clue. Probably a bit. So... yeah, he thinks you're hot. I thought it best to tell him no, since you're already occupied with Russel. Saves you from having to tell him no. He can stand 'no' from me."

"Thank you, Kien."

"No problem... at least for you. But now we should go see if my worst fears are right... or if I'm just being paranoid."

We had walked for less than ten minutes before we found just what we were looking for. We turned a corner and saw Thuyvy kissing the stranger that had stumbled into camp only a few days ago. If I was shocked to see this, I could only begin to imagine what Kien was feeling.

I glanced at him, and saw his face filled with pain, and maybe a little confusion. Abruptly, he grabbed my arm and dragged me away from the scene.

"I knew it was coming," he said shakily, sitting on bench. "But that doesn't stop it from hurting like it should." He put his hand to his heart. "Stupid bugger. Why did I listen to you? Some son of Athena I am. I'm supposed to listen to my head, not my heart."

"Kien," I said, once again, putting my hand on his shoulder.

"I just can't... I can't take this anymore!" he said angrily, slamming his fist against the bench. Unfortunately, he wasn't Superman, and the blow split open the skin of his hand, and possibly broke a few bones. "I've had enough of waiting, and waiting. I have to get away from this... away from her... away from everything."

Without another word, he shrugged off my hand and stormed off. I sat as still as a clock without batteries. It wasn't like him to explode... and I was afraid of what other un-Kien-like thing he was going to do next. It might be dangerous to follow, I thought. Especially with the fact that he might be armed. But what if I didn't follow? What if he did something that he could never take back? I had to make sure that nothing happened, because I was the only one who knew. So I followed after him... or at least, I tried to. By the time that I had decided to follow him, he had already disappeared, and I spent ten minutes scrambling around the camp like I was chasing a volleyball. I finally saw him again, walking out of the big house with a bandage wrapped around his fist a backpack over his shoulders, and a determined expression on his face.

"Kien!" I called. "Where are you going?"

"Away from here," he said quickly. "Anywhere that isn't here."

"But... but... you can't leave," I said to him. "We need you here."

"Name one person who truly needs me here," he said angrily. "Just one person."

"Star," I replied. "The little baby you brought here."

"Thuyvy and Carlisle can take care of her," he said with contempt. "They don't need me to do anything."

"How about––" I didn't manage to finish my sentence.

"Nobody," he said, stopping me in my tracks. "Just leave it at nobody. Please, Brynne. I don't want to hurt your feelings or anything... just let me go before I scream at you anymore..." With that, he walked past the camp boundaries, and leaving me alone in the middle of a field.

"Kien..." I whispered, too quietly for him to hear. I stared at his retreating back until a bolt of lightning struck him. The brightness of the bolt blinded me, and it took a few moments to regain my vision. When I did, he was nowhere to be found. No electrocuted body, no dust, not even a black patch on the ground. Where did he go?

"Hello there," a tall, brown-haired guy asked me. "Could you kindly tell me where I can find a Xenia Virtue?"

**Bryce: Too Long**

It had been too long since we had last seen each other. We were separated because the government had me on special assignment... a special assignment that hadn't gone entirely right. There weren't many half-bloods in Mexico, but there were plenty of drug dealers, and plenty of monsters. Every moment away from her was spent dreaming about what it'd be like to see her again. The real thing was just as good as any fantasy.

I opened the door to the cabin where she was staying and found her reading as she had been so many times before. I closed the door softly behind me, and she didn't hear, too absorbed in her literature. Then, suddenly, she yawned and her gorgeous blue eyes moved upwards and saw me standing in the doorway. She looked puzzled for a moment, then dropped everything, got up from her chair, and ran into my waiting arms. Like I said, just as good, if not better, than any fantasy.

"You seem to have lost your page," I said apologetically.

"Bryce!" she laughed. "I missed you!" And just like that, she kissed me just like she did the first time that October night.

I laughed. "I missed you, too."

"I have so many things to show you, to tell you about..." her voice trailed off, and I watched her bounce around the room just like she always did. Then she paused, and turned to me quizzically. "Just where were you, anyway? Nobody told me anything. They either didn't know, or, like Kien, told me that it was top secret."

I smiled. I knew she'd catch onto that eventually. "It wouldn't be a secret if I told you, now would it?" I laughed again. "I was in Mexico. Not many people knew about it, and those who did did not want to talk about it. The mission wasn't exactly a success story. The government wanted to keep it on the down low. Finally, they decided to cancel it, and Kien called me yesterday and told me I was coming back."

"He never told me about that," she said indignantly.

"He wanted it to be a surprise," I said for him, as he was not present to explain himself. "He thought it'd be better if I surprised you... where is he, anyway?"

"You don't know?" she asked, surprised.

"No..." I said suspiciously. "Why?"

"Well, I was hoping that he came to pick you up or something when you got here."

"No..."

"Then I guess we'd better find him," she sighed. "He's always wanted to meet you. In person, that is."

"I want to meet him too," I confessed. "A friend of yours is someone I can trust with my life."

An half an hour later, and we still had not found him yet. We had searched everywhere, from the strawberry fields to the forest with no sign of him. Finally, we went into the Big House to see if he was there.

"––And there has been no sign of him?" the centaur said as we walked in.

"No, sir, but we'll keep looking," a relatively tall dark-haired guy with glasses.

"Have you called him yet?" the centaur asked.

"Err, no sir," the guy answered. "We're going to try that now."

"Then get on it," the centaur sighed. "Let us just hope that he is still alive. This is beginning to look like the first war that Percy led us through. Let us hope that more half-bloods don't start disappearing."

"It's ringing," the dark-haired boy said.

"Hello?" the British accent I had heard on the phone yesterday answered the phone.

"Calvin, where the hell are you?" the boy demanded. I did not believe that that was the correct way to go about the situation, but I didn't say anything. There were a lot of protocols that I didn't know yet. So I waited for the conversation to play out...


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER THREE**

**Setting: Unknown**

**Kien: Where the Bloody Hell am I?**

Rain? I looked up at the dark sky and the droplets of water falling from the clouds. Something told me that I wasn't in New York anymore. But if I wasn't in New York… then where the bloody hell was I?

I saw lots of buildings, cars, and people. The entire place looked a bit worn down, possibly a slum. It was all so unfamiliar. At the very best, I still had my backpack full of weapons and medical supplies (two bottles of nectar).

I had to get moving, though. A half-blood alone in the streets made for a tasty snack for monsters. So I did. I wandered the streets, trying to forget the pain stabbing at my heart like a fork.

It wasn't what I thought it wasn't it wasn't both ways. I kept making excuses for what I had seen and what I knew. It had happened, it was real, and there was no going back. Not after walking in on that.

The phone rang happily in my pocket. I wasn't in the mood, but I had an obligation. With a sigh, I answered the phone. Even my awesome Taylor Swift ring tone couldn't cheer me up.

"Hello?" I said tiredly.

"Calvin, where the hell are you?" Michael demanded. No hello or anything.

To be perfectly honest with you, I have no clue as to where I am," I sighed. I wasn't in the mood for arguments, either.

"Soldier, what the hell do you mean you don't know where you are? You went there!"

"Look, Michael," I said through gritted teeth. "I was walking away from camp. Just outside the border, everything disappeared in a flash, and I wound up here. Anything you care to tell me that I don't already know?"

"No, but you could tell me where the hell _you _are."

"I don't know!" I screamed at him. "What about that don't you get?"

"How the hell you got there without knowing where the hell you are!"

"I didn't choose to come here!"

"I don't believe you."

"And I don't care!"

"Calvin, calm down," a voice said calmly. It was a voice that I didn't want to hear again. It was _her_ voice. "Everything is going to be okay."

"Shut up," I spat. "You don't have a clue what's going on right now, and frankly, neither do I. How could you do that, Thuyvy? Have you no conscience? How can you kiss someone out in the open like that?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," she sounded like she meant it, but I knew better. I had _seen_ what had happened.

"Of course you don't," I said bitterly. "You don't know who you're kissing. Of course, you've been put under some bloody spell, and you have no idea what happened." The pitch of my voice began to rise. "And then you come here with the nerve to tell me to calm down. Damn it, woman!" I had never heard myself so mad before.

"Calvin…"

"I don't want to hear anything you have to say," I said as coldly as I could, even as the tear made its way down my cheek. "I just never want to see you again… never hear your voice again. Never." And I hung up and took a deep breath, the tears flowing freely. I couldn't control myself, and I sunk to the ground, sobbing. It felt good to let everything go. All of the pain, the hurt… I let it flow out. And it flowed and flowed, like a river. It left for ten minutes, and I finally managed to get a grip on myself. I managed to get to my feet, and stumble along by leaning against the wall. Then I saw her.

She looked so familiar, but I couldn't quite place it. She was forced to the ground by a burly man with a lumberjack brown beard. She was screaming for help. So I walked towards the man and punched him in the face. What else was I supposed to do?

"Leave her alone," I said, sounding tough for once in my life.

"By who's command?" the man asked in a Scottish accent, grasping at his bleeding nose. "The queen's?"

"Mine," I said. "Now leave the girl alone."

"Leave the lassie alone?" he laughed. "No' a chance! I know I can get her fer fifty pounds, an' I'll do it, I will!"

I looked at her calf, which appeared to have recently been slashed open. Fifty pounds my arse. More like one slash to the calf. It was crude, but effective.

More than her slashed calf, her face drew my eyes. It was innocent, in pain, familiar. Her teeth were gritted against the pain, but tears flowed down her cheeks anyway. Her blonde hair was unkept, and her clothes were tattered.

I let myself get distracted, the fool I was. A moment before the blade made contact with my face, my head shot back towards the man. Time slowed to a crawl, and I reached up with my bandaged hand, trying to deflect the blade mid swing. Just because my head didn't get slashed open didn't mean that it didn't hurt like hell. The blade connected cleanly with my hand, and cut through the bandages and my skin. Still, the tactic worked, and I gripped the blade in my hand, the rusty steel cutting deeper into my hand. But instead of more blood coming out, electricity sparked out of my hand. It danced along the length of the blade, and up the man's arm. It raced through his entire body, and jolted everything. I could tell by the way he was shaking and foaming at the mouth. Then, suddenly, he dropped with a thud. He was dead, and I knew it for a fact. Then he disintegrated into a pile of dust, signifying that he was, of course, a monster. It left no blot on my conscience to rid the world of another flesh-eating monster. Had it really been a man… I don't like to think about it.

But the electricity? It made no sense. Son of Athena, grandson of Apollo, that's who I was. I was _not_ the son of Zeus. What had happened? Some blessing of some sort, from some god. Then my focus returned to the girl. I could help, and I would.

**Kira: Angel's Face**

My eyes were squeezed shut, and I was trying hard not to cry from the pain. Trying, and failing. He had slashed my right calf, and I was bleeding warm blood from it. Bloody hell it hurt. I knew from experience that I wouldn't be able to move very fast the way my leg was. And to make matters worse, it was raining, and I was getting cold.

"Are you alright, love?" a friendly voice asked. Tentatively, I opened my eyes and saw the face of an angel examining my leg. He had dark brown eyes and short black hair. It was just like from that dream. "You won't be able to get far on a leg like this, love."

"Um… hi…" I honestly couldn't think of anything else to say.

He looked up and smiled at me. "Hello, there. I'm going to have to treat this. It might sting a bit… actually, it's going to hurt quite a bit, to be honest with you." He frowned as he rummaged through the pockets of his backpack. "To be quite frank with you, I haven't a clue where we are right now. Are we in England?"

I was taken aback. "We're in London, of course. You got here somehow, surely, you know that?"

"To be honest with you, I haven't the faintest idea how I got here…" his eyes got misty. "I remember seeing her… then Brynne trying to get me to stay then… I don't know." He shook his head and reexamined me, and he looked puzzled. "Do I… have I seen you before? You look oddly familiar… like from a dream or something…"

"From a dream involving a very large battle?" I asked hopefully.

"As a matter of fact…" he looked at me quizzically. "Kira?"

"Kien?" I questioned in kind.

"Why can't dreams ever be just dreams?" he laughed. "Well, I guess we're going to go out for tea, then? I _did_ say that I would go if it wasn't a dream. It wasn't _just_ a dream."

"No, I guess not," I agreed with a smile.

"How's about I fix you up a bit first?" he asked, handing me a bottle of golden liquid. "Drink up, it'll numb the pain… I hope."

I was uncertain, but I started putting the mystery liquid into my mouth and drinking it. Surprisingly, though it looked sort of like lemon juice, it actually tasted more like strawberry milk. I was halfway through the bottle when he spoke again. "I think you should stop drinking now."

"Huh?" I asked, removing the bottle from my mouth.

"If you drink too much you might turn into a pile of ash," he cautioned. "We really shouldn't drink the nectar of the gods, but… nothing does a better job for a quick fix and painkiller."

"Quick fix?" I said uncomprehendingly.

"Look down at your leg," he advised.

I looked down at my leg and tentatively reached down to feel the cut with my left hand. Amazingly there was no pain, and no cut. There was only the smeared blood to provide any hint that anything had happened there. "What the bloody hell?"

He smiled. "Nectar is always useful to have around. Now, can I have the bottle back, please?"

Reluctantly, I gave the bottle back to him. It had been so good, a taste that I hadn't… well… tasted in a really long time. He took the bottle, made sure it was closed tightly, and put it back in his backpack. That was when I noticed for the first time that his right hand was bandaged up.

"What happened to your hand?" I blurted out. I wasn't known for keeping my tongue in check.

"What?" he asked. "This old thing?" He frowned. "I don't want to remember… but I do. I slammed my fist against one of the stone benches back at Camp Half-Blood. I was just so… mad. Damn, and now I cut it open again." He took the bottle back out of the backpack and started sipping out of it. "I really should have kept better check of myself. Brynne didn't deserve all of that frustration."

"Your girlfriend?" I asked, my heart sinking.

He laughed. "I wouldn't have accepted a date if she was. No, no, no. She was just a friend." He regarded me oddly. "Just wondering, what did the nectar taste like?"

"You just tasted it," I said, confused.

"It's different for everyone," he explained.

"Oh…" I didn't know what else to say. "It tasted like strawberry milk."

"You have good taste," he complimented.

"Thank you."

Then I heard a song by an American country artist emanating from somewhere nearby.

"That'll be Michael," Kien sighed, pulling a phone out of his pocket. "Or it could be… I hope not."

**Setting: Camp Half-Blood, Long Island**

**Thuyvy: What did I do?**

To be honest, I was confused. I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Kissing Carlisle, the new kid? I would never have done that. Not by a long shot. Still, he had said it, and with such burning hatred, it was painful. Had I neglected him as a friend? The familiar fear of losing another friend pulsated in my body.

In the next room, Michael, Xenia, Brynne, Haley, Chiron and the guy that I had never seen before were trying to find Calvin and get back into contact with him. Seeing how he had reacted to me, they decided that it was best that I wasn't there. I could still hear the entire conversation, however.

"Hello?" his familiar voice said over the phone.

"Kien," Haley began. "It's Haley."

"…Okay," he said monotonously.

"Listen, do you know where you are?" she said calmly.

"My sources tell me that I'm in London, England," he said quietly.

"Sources?" Michael asked.

"I see Michael is around," he said, with a faint trace of his old humor. "Yes, Mike, my sources. A certain Kira…" he paused for a moment. "Williams. Kira Williams."

"When are you coming back?" Xenia piped in. "Bryce is here, and he'd really like to meet you."

"Bryce?" he sounded slightly surprised. "So he made it back okay, I take it?"

"Fine," the brown-haired boy said. I took him to be Bryce. "I am actually better than fine. I am doing quite well, now that I have been reunited with Xenia."

"Well that makes a happy ending for one of us," he laughed mirthlessly. "Bryce, I wish you all the best… and I regret not being there to meet you in person… but… I do not believe that I shall return. That is… ever. I don't want to see her… ever again."

"Kien, you should not run away from this situation like this," Bryce said calmly.

"I know," he sighed, a rush of static on the phone. "But everything that I remember about her… everything I feel… is defined by that one moment. I knew what I was going to see it, but it didn't prepare me for it. Nothing could."

"Running away will not solve the problem," Chiron said wisely.

"I know that, sir, but… I need some time off…"

"I understand," Chiron said with a nod. "We will give you leave for one week, but if an emergency should come up, we may require your return, is that acceptable?"

"Yes, sir," he answered. "One week… should… should be fine. Thank you, sir."

Then he hung up, and for a moment, there was silence in the other room.

"Is he really going to come back?" Michael suddenly blurted out.

"I cannot be sure," Chiron said sadly, as he clip-clopped out of the room.

"At least he's alive," Brynne sighed.

"I'm sort of glad he isn't here right now," Xenia said out of nowhere.

"How could you say that?" Brynne demanded. "He's––"

"I'm just saying that if he was here, he'd probably be destroying things left and right," Xenia explained. "He doesn't seem entirely in control of himself, that's for sure. And I've never seen him so mad before, so maybe it's best he isn't here to take the rage out on us."

"I guess that makes sense," Brynne sighed.

"Don't worry, Kien will be back," Haley assured them all. "He's got too much waiting for him for him _not_ to come back."

"I hope you're right, Haley," Michael said. "But we can't be sure. In the meantime, I'm going to have to ask someone to take care of Star… she's powerful, and extremely vulnerable at the moment. I don't think Thuyvy can take care of her alone." I knew it wasn't meant as an insult, but it sure felt that way.

"We can do it," Xenia said suddenly. "That is, me and Bryce."

"_Bryce_ _and I_," Haley corrected.

"Oh whatever!" Xenia waved it off. "I mean, _Bryce and I_ can take care of her."

"Really?" I could imagine Michael looking at Bryce. "I suppose it'll work. Now to tell Thuyvy…"

"I'm not deaf you know!" I cried out suddenly, and all of their heads turned in my direction. "I heard everything!" I was tearing up, though I really shouldn't have. With that, I stormed out of the Big House, frustrated with everything that was going on.

I ran with all I had into the woods. There, I let all of my emotions out. I let the tears flow for the first time in a good long while. And there was no understanding hand on my shoulder. No compassionate arms wrapped around me. Nobody telling me that everything was going to be alright. Nobody, just like it should have been.

He was a liar. He said that he'd always be there for me. He said that I had kissed Carlisle. Those were both lies. But… Brynne had confirmed one of them. She said that she had seen it, too. Then she was a liar, too. But there was the blank spot in my memory. The place with no recollection of anything. It was an odd thought, but what if it had really happened? What if something had happened? What if someone had wiped my memory? If Calvin wasn't in Europe, he would have loved to check this out. Medical anomalies almost never failed to put him into gear. But he was mad at me. There had to be someone that could check this out. My mind flitted to Haley. She would have to do. And Brynne, she had to know something. I had to know. What if I really had kissed Carlisle? Would Calvin forgive me if he knew what happened? If he didn't know, then at least I would. I would find the truth.

**Haley: An… Interesting Predicament**

I wasn't expecting Thuyvy to approach me in the midst of archery practice. In fact, she was the last person I expected to see after her reaction after the phone conversation. But there she was.

"Haley, we need to talk," she said.

"Um… okay," I replied, following her off the archery range, where my fellow brothers and sisters were making bullseyes with ease. We sat down at one of the nearby benches and sat down. She took a deep breath and looked me in the eyes.

"Look… I know that you were Calvin's friend," she said slowly. "And I've heard you're really smart. And I… well, I need your help."

"What kind of help?" I asked, intrigued.

"There's… there's a part of my memory that… well, I can't remember," she confessed. "And I think it may have a clue as to what happened… if I really did… kiss Carlisle."

"You came to the right person," I said confidently. "We'll get to the bottom of this. I guess we can use Annabeth's lab, she won't mind… I hope. She might have notes or something that we can use."

"Haley… thanks," Thuyvy said quietly.

"My pleasure," I said honestly. And to be honest, I wanted to figure out what really happened. Kien wouldn't have left for a little thing like that. And when he said that he knew that it was coming… how did he know that kind of stuff? Not instinct. Out instincts only told us facts of the present, not of the future. It was an enigma indeed.

A few minutes later, we were inside Annabeth's "lab". It wasn't much, to be honest. There were stacks of unused notebooks, and a small stack of notebooks filled with notes. There were measurement devices of all sorts. I knew what I was looking for, though I didn't really know it. Something told me that I needed the godly-molecular scanner. It looked like a blood pressure reading device, but instead of blood pressure, it measured things like the amounts of amourites, scientites, and apollites. All of which were different molecules that supposedly came from the blessings of gods, and showed whether you were blessed by gods or not. Of course, Kien gave them all the names even though Daedalus had discovered them. And I had no idea if any of them were real or not. There was also a hand held metal-detector version to scan objects, but the blood-pressure version would do for now.

"Annabeth's been busy," I noted, flipping through the notebooks until I found one which had notes on those molecules. "Alright, Thuyvy, I assume you know how this works?"

She nodded. "It's a blood pressure device."

"It's like one," I explained. "But it's slightly different. It works the same way, though."

"Right…" she said, uncomprehendingly, as she wrapped the device around her arm. I pressed the button, and I saw the device beginning to work. About a minute later, the pressure let up, and the numbers appeared on the screen. "Am" was at 301, "Sc" was at 188, and "Ap" was at 100. It was an odd range of numbers, so I consulted Annabeth's notebooks. My finger traced down the table of the Am section, until I reached the 300 region. The note had me appalled.

"Natural levels should never reach this high. Not observed, even in Aphrodite girls. Possibly from love arrows. Need further confirmation by studying love arrows. Cupid reluctant to let me study them, however." I read the note out loud, because it wasn't making any sense in my head. No natural levels? Love arrows? What on Earth was she talking about?

"Haley, I saw you coming in here, and…" Brynne trailed off when she saw Thuyvy. She was standing in the doorway, with a golden arrow in her hand.

"Is that a love arrow?" I demanded. Tentatively, she nodded. "Give it to me. Now." Uncertainly, she obeyed, laying the golden thing in my hand. It felt light, for something apparently made of gold.

Doing what seemed natural, I began scanning the object with the metal-detector thing. The little screen near the handle indicated off the charts levels of Am, and negative levels of Sc. Based on what I knew about Annabeth's notes, I would have had to guess that the love arrows made you fall deepy in love, and make you do incredibly stupid things, by eliminating knowledge/wisdom molecules. It all made so much sense. It also possibly had the after affects of not recording the events on memory… which made even more sense. If she couldn't remember anything… then maybe things were starting to add up.

"Does Kien know about this?" I asked Brynne.

"Yes, I do," Kien said, as he leaned against the door post.

**Brynne: Color me Confused**

"Kien!" both me and Haley yelled at the same time. We were going to run and hug him when Thuyvy stopped us with both of her arms.

"It isn't him," she said quietly.

"Nonsense," Kien said. "It is I, Kien."

Thuyvy drew her knife and stood in a battle position. "You. Are. Not. Calvin," she said slowly. "I know him better than that."

That's when I began to notice the subtle differences. His face was too perfect, and his shoes… he was wearing Converse. Kien would never wear Converse. He was too much of a shoe fashion rebel.

"She's right," I gasped. "He's not Kien."

Haley nodded. "I think I see what you mean."

"Nonsense…" he was probably going to say "It is I, Kien," but he didn't. Possibly because he noticed that we all knew that he was a fake. "I may not be Kien, but three mortal whelps could not possibly take me on."

I grabbed a sword from Kien's table and tried to hold it in a battle position. Haley drew her bow, and Thuyvy just stood her ground. The fake-Kien grinned evilly.

"You three could never take me down," he laughed. It was an evil, deep laugh, that shook the entire room. "But you can try."

"Who are you?" Thuyvy demanded.

"Loki," he replied offhandedly. "The god of fire and trickery. And there is plenty of both to go around in this camp. And if there isn't, I'll make sure there will be soon enough."

"Shut up," Haley said, launching an arrow. It missed, because Loki had disappeared out the door, onto the grass of the camp. We looked around at each other. "After him," we agreed. So we rushed out the door, one at a time, and spotted Loki a few yards ahead. Haley stopped, took aim, and fired, catching him in the ankle as he was running away. Golden blood flowed out of the wound, and he turned on us, his eyes flickering with flames.

"You shall pay for that insult," Loki scowled, a fireball forming in his hand. Fortunately for us, Clarisse had spotted him, and mistaking him for Kien, tackled him. "That's for the crappy referee job during the water polo game!" she yelled as she knocked him to the ground. "I did NOT foul that girl, and you know it!"

"Insolent fool!" Loki yelled at her, knocking her flat on her back. "Do not trifle with Loki!"

"Loki?" she seemed confused. "Oh crap."

A few arrows whizzed over his head, and he had to duck. From the archery range, I spotted a line of kids with bows aiming again. He cursed heavily and conjured a sword out of his fireball. "Foolish mortals. You are dealing with a god!"

"Believe it or not, we are aware of that," Bryce said calmly, swinging a sword at Loki, who deflected it with his blade. "And we can stop you. Or at least distract you for awhile," Bryce said, after narrowly avoiding Loki's blade.

"You won't get away with what you've done," Percy said angrily, slamming his sword down on Loki's head. Loki deflected that as well.

Loki smiled. "So you've noticed what has happened to your beloved."

"Shut up!" he screamed, swinging his sword, Riptide, harder and faster than before. "You poisoned her! You. Will. Pay. I will make you pay."

"You will try," Loki taunted.

The battle didn't look like it was going too well. One god was taking on two half-bloods easily, without trying. It was disturbing. All I could do was watch.

**Georgie: So Brave, So Cute**

He was so brave, and so cute! I am talking, of course, about Michael. A few moments after Percy started fighting with the evil Kien thing… person, Michael rode in on his dragon and started fighting, too. The way the three of them took on that jerk was so cool! The way he moved while he was fighting was sooo amazing! And Rachel was right there to appreciate it this time.

"He's cute, isn't he, Rachel?" I asked expectantly.

"Um… no, not really," Rachel replied.

"What?" I was aghast. I was _not_ hearing what I thought I was.

"No," Rachel repeated. "I don't think he's really that cute."

"Rachel!" I was shocked, and I told her so. "I'm shocked! I knew you couldn't appreciate true beauty. Maybe you're just jealous."

"Jealous?" Rachel sounded indignant. "Of what?"

She was really asking for it. "Because _I_ have found the perfect guy, and you're still looking."

"Oh no, you did _not_ just go there, Georgie," she said, rolling up the sleeves of her t-shirt.

"Hey watch out!" a moment later, I was tackled to the ground. I hoped that my nails weren't broken. "Are you okay?"

I looked up and saw this strong-looking, sandy-haired guy. He was kinda cute, but not as cute as Michael, not by a long shot. He helped me up to my feet and smiled.

"The name's Leroy," the guy said. "Do you want to hang out sometime?"

"Uh, nnnno," I said, making the "n" longer than usual. "I'm already taken."

"Oh… okay," he sounded kind of disappointed.

I thought it was pretty cool how I could meet cute guys in the middle of a battle. I was glad that _I_ wasn't in the battle. I might have ruined my nails or something. But it was so exciting to see Michael fighting. I'd bet that if I was kidnapped or something, he would fight for me just like that. I told Rachel that, too. Of course, being Rachel, she didn't believe me. I could tell that she was just jealous, even though she constantly _insisted_ that she was not. Psh, not like I'd believe that. I'd bet that all of the girls in the camp were jealous of me.

But, to make sure that he would like me, I had to look good. So I sat down with my bag of makeup and started doing my nails, and making sure that they were nice and pretty. I also put chap stick on my lips, and made sure that my hair looked good. Rachel was busy watching the fight, but _I_ was busy making sure that I looked good. Watching doesn't do any good. Actions speak louder than words, and doing nails was certainly better than standing around.

The fight was long, and I could hear the sound of the swords scraping each other. If only they could have gotten along better. After all, violence is _not_ the answer. I would have told it to that ugly guy's face, but he looked pretty dangerous, and it was hard to get close enough to say anything without nearly getting slashed by a sword, so I stayed back.

I was thinking about how Michael would eventually ask me out (of course he would) when I heard an entirely different noise. It was a dull thud on the ground, and I looked up. I saw Michael lying on the ground (oh no!) and the ugly guy without any arms.

He looked up, and he looked really, really mad.

"You shall all pay for this!" he screeched. Then he disappeared in a puff of black smoke, his arms gone with him.

"Medic," Percy panted, laying his sword down. "We… need a medic…"

I would have run up to Michael, who was on the ground, but I was in too much shock. And the medics came and pulled him away very quickly. I was frozen the entire time.


	4. Chapter 4

**I'll give kudos to anyone who has read this far. I know that the constant perspective changing is relatively confusing, and sort of annoying at times. But I'd like to give credit to my best friend, xealvi for writing Xenia's part of this chapter. Thanks, mate.**

**I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, or any other affiliated characters etc.**

**CHAPTER FOUR**

**Michael: Wounded**

Wounded in combat. Nothing was quite as bad as that, especially against the god of trickery. He was nasty, clever, tricky, sure. But he was a coward, and I had been wounded by him. My stupid leg was suspended from the ceiling, and wrapped in a cocoon of cloth and bandages. All because of him. He was a nasty one. Not to mention that his swords were cursed, so that my stupid leg wouldn't stop stupid bleeding all of the time if they took the bandages off. And it wasn't even a near fatal wound. Pathetic.

Then there was the fact that some girl kept visiting me all of the time while I was laying in the recovery room. She was relatively tall with long, dark brown hair. I had no idea what to make of her. She wasn't medical staff, and she certainly wasn't someone that I knew.

There was also the teddy bear sitting at my bedside chair, with its shiny eyes staring at me throughout the entire day. It was, to be honest, infuriating. That blank stare, that cold, blank, innocent stare, with its arms out in a "hug me" position. It was sickening. I probably yelled at it once or twice in the time that I was confined in that room. I'm not proud of it. Yelling at teddy bears certainly did not make me feel any more manly.

And the most annoying part of the entire situation was that I was unable to make _any_ contact with Calvin… at all. It was like he had disappeared off of the face of the Earth. Little did I know that he had, in fact, done that. Every time that I called, the same message would come up.

"On an important top-secret mission, please call again later, or leave a message… or both. I'll call you when I can," it always said. If the teddy bear and the girl weren't annoying enough, I had a missing officer. It was quite enough to clog up my brain.

At the very least, I had my laptop, and no distractions from official matters, as Chiron had relieved me of duty due to my injury. That left me free to play Halo all day long. It also left me an unusual amount of time to think about my life. Whenever Calvin brought up love, I always told him that it was weak to love, foolish even. Still, the matter kept repeating itself in my head since I couldn't get into contact with him. I was not the dating type, but the matter haunted me ever since the discovery of the love arrow. And of course, it brought up the question of whether or not I was vulnerable to it or not.

And it also brought up the question of whether or not I wanted to be vulnerable to it. The obvious answer was that I did _not_ want to be vulnerable to it, but there was that nagging voice again. That stupid voice that sounded so much like Calvin, telling me to eventually settle down and have a family. I was too young for that, obviously. Not that I desired it either.

Then there was that girl.

Just who was she, and what did she want? With her constant hanging around my room, she was bothering me. Again, Calvin's stupid predictions. He had once told me that girls would one day be falling for my quiet charm and sarcasm. I told him to shut the (profanity) up. He had laughed and left me alone.

"Stupid Calvin," I muttered under my breath. I stared out the window at the night landscape. I saw a lone figure sneaking around, dressed entirely in black. I had the feeling that it was Daniel, being Daniel. If he headed towards the showers or the Aphrodite cabin, then I'd have to call some of the security team to apprehend him, but otherwise, I would leave him alone. Fluffy had some issues. Privacy was one of them. That is, respecting the privacy of others… and himself.

The damned leg was bothering me, and the stupid thoughts were bothering me, but at least I was not in Annabeth's shoes. She was dying, and we all knew it. There was no cure that we could find. It was some sort of poison… and it worked rather quickly and painfully. Loki had done it while she was asleep like the coward he was. Everyday, I could hear she and Percy conversing in the next room. Tearful conversations that would drag on and on. They reflected on good times that they had had, and what they had hoped to happen. Every night, before he left, Percy would tell her how much he loved her and how he swore he'd find a cure. He'd been at it for about almost week already.

Derek, one of the healers (enrolled in medical school) was so frustrated by not being able to find a cure, he was heard taking his frustration out on anybody walking by. Anybody who bothered him while he worked was immediately screamed at. It wasn't a pretty situation, and none of us liked it. We were all upset, but Percy… Percy was devastated. I doubted that I'd ever go through what he was going through. I hoped never to have to.

I looked outside the window again. The moon was full and high in the sky. Bryce, one of the new arrivals put into my security team had asked for a night off. Said he wanted to spend it with his girlfriend. I gave it to him. I didn't expect anything to happen right after the Loki attack. They didn't need to do anything, whoever the other side was. Whenever they _did_ strike, it would be after Annabeth had kicked the bucket, and we were in a state of mourning. When we were in tatters, they would strike. I was almost certain of it.

Then my phone rang, unexpectedly on my bedside table. I took a quick glance at the number and picked up. It was just who I needed to talk to.

"Calvin, where the hell have you been?" I asked in a friendly manner.

"Ugh, horrible places," he moaned. "Glad to be back in a place where I'm not having to watch my back every second just to make sure I don't get attacked by zombie vikings or trolls. You've called a lot."

"Yeah, we've got bad news," I said. I paused, unsure how to continue. "Well… Annabeth… she's been poisoned. She isn't going to make it."

There was silence on the other line.

"Calvin?"

"Panacea," he breathed quietly. "You need panacea."

"What the hell is panacea?" I demanded.

"It heals all ailments," he informed me. "It's even better than nectar. I assume you've already tried injections of nectar on Annabeth. If those haven't worked, then panacea is the next thing to try. I think…" his voice trailed off.

"Calvin?"

"The oracle," he sighed. "Rachel Elizabeth Dare will know exactly what to do… you've gotta get into contact with her somehow." The connection began to break up with static. "Damn!" I heard him say. "They're jamming communications. We're under attack. We'll be fine, though. Go find Rachel…"

The connection broke completely, and I hung up, getting ready to dial the number of somebody who could go find Rachel and bring her here for a prophecy.

"Stupid Calvin," I muttered as I dialed Rachel's number.

**Daniel: Caught in the Act**

X-ray goggles were the best invention on the face of this Earth, that is a fact. If you're an honest person, you could use them to check for broken bones, or if terrorists are really making bombs in a building. For the rest of us, you can use them to spy on a cabin full of the daughters of Aphrodite. Which am I? I'm an honest person, that is, I will not lie. I use them to spy on cabins full of Aphrodite's daughters.

But where am I? I'm getting way off track.

I was laying low in a bush that just so happened to be lying right next to the Aphrodite cabin. Just a coincidence, right?

Exactly.

My x-ray goggles were on my head pointed straight in the direction of the cabin. Pure chance, right?

Precisely.

By this combination of pure chance, and freak coincidence, I witnessed the girls in the Aphrodite cabin having a fight. You'd think that they were using pillows. You'd be thinking wrong. They were in full blown battle armor, beating the crud out of each other with swords and shields. I never knew that they could be so vicious. The new girl was doing a lot of the fighting, to be honest. Well, one of the new girls. The one with the long brown hair.

Staking out in the bush, I mean… by freak chance, being in the bush, I never expected to witness a fight amongst those girls. It almost made me think twice about getting hooking up with one of them, but only almost. Why? They were hot, that's why.

"Um, what are you doing in that bush?" somebody asked politely from behind me. I whirled around and saw what appeared to be a sort of short Asian girl that I had recently seen around the camp a few times. Likely a newcomer that I'd never had the opportunity to meet before.

"I uh, I tripped," I said "honestly".

"Wow," she said, surprised. "That's a really thorny bush. Are you okay?"

No questions, she just accepted it. What a sap… I mean, what a nice person who knows the truth when she sees it.

"Yeah, I'm okay," I said, brushing off the thorns and standing up.

"Do you want me to take you to the medical cabin, or something?" she asked, concerned.

Deciding not to blow my cover (and to get the thorns embedded in my arms out) I agreed to let her escort me to the medical cabin.

"My name is Ashley Hanson," she introduced herself as we walked.

"And I'm uh…" I hesitated to tell her my real name, but decided to do it in the end. "I'm Daniel Tran."

She shook my hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Daniel Tran," she added pleasantly.

"Who's your parent?" I asked curiously.

"Like… goddess parent?" she inquired for clarification.

"Yeah."

"Artemis," she replied.

"Oh…" it bothered me that a lot of the hot girls were either hunters of Artemis, or her daughters. By daughters, I mean that they were created by Artemis to be almost exactly like her hunters, except that they had part of their genetic material from a particularly significant woman, and the other from the goddess. In no way were men involved. Following with their mother, they almost never had any relationships with any men. That fact bothered me quite a bit.

We reached the medical cabin without further conversation. There wasn't much else to say. There was no sense in hitting on a daughter of Artemis. It ended up with nothing. It was a waste of energy trying. Besides, no daughter of Artemis was as hot as a daughter of Aphrodite, it's the honest truth, with no disrespect intended.

The moment we walked in, the nurse stopped us. She was a daughter of Aphrodite who didn't know the first thing about medicine. But… she was hot, and that was what counted. She had shoulder-length reddish hair that she wore loose.

"Hey, Daniel," she winked at me. It was nice to know that at least some of the females in this camp noticed me. "Sorry, but you can't go in right now, at least not to see Derek. If you interrupt him, he'll have a fit and start screaming at you."

"Oh… right," I said comprehending her meaning. "I need to get these thorns removed, though."

"Those look familiar, somehow…" she said with a frown. "Are those from a rose bush?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "It was dark when I fell into the bush."

"Bush?" she raised an eyebrow. "The one right outside the Aphrodite cabin?"

"Yeah," Ashley jumped in. "He tripped and fell in it."

"Why were you walking near there, anyway?" the girl asked.

"Um, I was…" I thought up an excuse. "I was looking for you."

She raised an eyebrow. "Were you really?"

"Yeah… yeah I was," I lied.

"Do you even know my name?"

"Uh…"

She smiled. "Trish. That's short for Patricia, Patricia Keith. So, do you want me to remove those thorns for you?"

"That'd be nice," I said coolly. No need to slip up now.

"I'm… I'm… gonna go now," Ashley said as she slipped out the door.

"Okay," I said absent-absentmindedly.

I was glad to see her go. Two was company, but three… well, if one's a daughter of Artemis, three's a crowd. At the dead of night, crowds were not good.

**Georgie: Oh No She Didn't**

Nobody, I repeat, nobody can hit on my future boyfriend. That includes any of my half-sisters, any of my friends, any of the gods, and especially, especially, Rachel. They could all be jealous, but the moment they started thinking about making a move on him, they were going down. And that's what happened to my sister Samantha.

We were sitting in the cabin, and talking about cute boys (when don't we?), and I mentioned Michael. Some of the girls looked skeptical, but Samantha's eyes got all misty and she sighed and started talking about how awesome he was. Then she started talking about a plan to get him to like her.

Her plan involved her getting hurt by monsters, then rescued by Michael, who would, of course, fall in love with her after that. Or at least, that's what she said. The moment she mentioned him falling in love with her, I got up and strapped on some of the battle armor that I had been wearing earlier when we did combat/fashion training.

"Georgie, what are you doing?" the cabin counselor asked me.

"I," I said. "Am going to beat up Samantha."

The counselor looked shocked. "Why?"

"She's planning to steal my future boyfriend, that's why," I said, like it should have been obvious. It was, of course.

"Oh," she said understandingly. "At least give her a fighting chance." She beckoned to Samantha. "Put on your armor. Remember, both of you have to look good while you're fighting. Boys love it when girls know how to kick butt, and look cute at the same time. That's a rule that I have never seen broken in my entire life."

It didn't take Samantha long to put on her battle gear. She was scared, I could tell. You know why she was scared? Because when you're fighting against true love, you know that you can't win. She knew, deep down inside those hazel eyes, that she couldn't win because me and Michael were destined to be together. She couldn't win.

"The winner will get a shot at Michael," the counselor said as we stood in battle positions. "That is, with the entire cabin helping to make it happen. With all of us working together, there isn't any guy that we can't make fall in love, right?"

The entire cabin began cheering.

"Maybe we should all fight, and the winner will get help getting the guy," somebody piped up.

"That's actually a good idea," the counselor mused aloud. "Everyone in battle gear! The fight can move outside, but I want this to start here. Don't leave cuts, or ugly scars, but other than that, pretty much anything else is acceptable."

Motivated by the reward, all of the girls began suiting up for battle in various different outfits with matching helmets and shields. Even matching swords and boots. That's how good we were.

After everyone was dressed in our armor, we started fighting. I made a beeline for Samantha. I didn't care about my sword, or hers. I just smashed into her and started pulling her hair. What better way to make her suffer and surrender? Also, she wouldn't be as pretty, just in case she got any ideas, it wouldn't work on Michael.

She screamed and kicked me off, drawing her sword. I smashed her face with my shield and poured water on her face to ruin her make-up. She fought back, trying to rip my outfit. It went on like that for a really, really long time, until we were both panting for air, and I had thrown her into the rose bush next to the cabin.

"Don't touch my future boyfriend," I warned her as I stepped away to find other people to fight. There weren't many people left fighting. The counselor and a few others. Brynne and Cami were working together to take people down. It made me wish that I had a twin to help me, but then again, no. Then she'd probably be after Michael, too, and I'd have a hard time beating her up because she would be just as pretty as I was… maybe a little less.

Anyway, in the end, I won the battle, because true love always wins. All those other girls would never get anywhere, but I would, I could tell. With the help of my entire cabin, I would do very well.

**Xenia: A Late Night Out**

I feel a finger poke me in the stomach. I groan, turning my body in the armchair that I had fallen asleep in.

"Wake up love." I hear a voice say.

"Go away…..give me 5 more minutes…..I don't have school today…" I automatically mutter into the cushion of the armchair.

I hear chuckling from beside me. "And you're always saying how I sleep too much."

At that line my eyes fly open. Sure enough, sitting right next to me is my boyfriend, Bryce.

"Bryce!" I yell at him, scrambling to get out of the armchair.

Faster than the speed of light, he moves and pins me down in the chair. His dazzling eyes, now the color green, twinkle at me playfully. He tilts his face down so that his lips are mere centimeters from mine. I can feel his breath warm on mine as he breathes through his mouth. Slowly a smile that could illuminate the entire camp spreads across his face.

"Looks like I have you pinned love. That means I win." He whispers to me.

"You didn't win." I whisper back furiously. "You caught me off guard. I was sleeping for goddess' sake! I'm in my pajamas, for crying out loud! And you shouldn't even….."

My voice is cut off as his lips connect with mine. I'm startled for a second and my heart jumps into my throat. Smiling, I kiss him back, wrapping my arms around his neck.

Breathing hard after a few minutes, I break away for a second to whisper to him. "I guess that's what I get for dating a son of Dawn."

He chuckles and leans down to kiss me again. His warm lips meet mine and I feel my entire being surge with joy. I can't tell where I am, I've forgotten that I'm in my cabin, I've forgotten that I'm in my pajamas, and I've forgotten about the rest of the world. All I knew was him.

I'm hyper aware of his hand on my back, slowly tracing lines of desire. I know that his other hand is on the arm of the chair, holding him back. My fingers intertwine in his hair, pulling him closer to me, as one of my hands gently slides down the back of his neck to slowly stroke his cheek and then his jawbone. He groans quietly in pleasure, but I can still hear him. His denim jeans are brushing against my smooth legs. I can feel his heart beating faster and faster, but always in time with mine.

Suddenly I hear coughing coming from somewhere. Bryce's lips slowly part from mine as he turns around. My eyes open to see Thuyvy standing in the doorway.

My face immediately turns a bright red, and as I look over at Bryce I see that he's a little pink too except he's smiling like an idiot. The way he always does when he gets embarrassed.

Looking back at Thuyvy, I find that she's also blushing. So quickly I stand up to try taking control of the situation. Don't ask me how I'm going to do that in a black tank top and pajama shorts with crescent moons splattered all over them. I had no idea if she would take me seriously. But I could always try.

"So, Thuyvy. Um…do you need something?" I ask her. So much for sounding like I know what I'm doing.

"I…uh….I need to talk to you for a sec." She replies, pointing outside.

I feel a hand gently squeeze mine. Looking over at Bryce, he smiles at me. His gorgeous eyes, now an orangey color, look at me with love.

"Go on. I'll be right here, love." He says in a kind voice as he gently squeezes my hand again.

"What about Star?" I ask, pointing to the little sleeping child on my bed.

"I'll be watching her. Remember. WE are taking care of her."

My heart leaps at the way he says "we". I smile at him and then quickly stand on my toes to lightly kiss his lips. Thuyvy coughs again, and I giggle very un-Xenia-like. I smile again and walk towards Thuyvy, putting my arm around her shoulders and walking her out into the night air.

The door to the cabin closes behind us and I breathe in the cool air. My mother being the goddess of the night I feel significantly more powerful at this time of day. I smile and offer a prayer of thanks to Nyx, my mother, and then I turn back to Thuyvy.

"What is it?" I ask her softly, putting my hand on her shoulder.

"I'm confused." She says.

"About?"

"Calvin."

"Calvin. What about him?" I ask her.

"Don't you call him Kien?"

This wasn't what I was prepared for, but I answer. "I call him both."

She nods and fires another question. "You guys are pretty good friends, right?"

"I'd like to think so. How come?"

"He seems really mad at me and I don't know what to do." She speaks with distress and I see tears welling up in her eyes.

Shocked I use the night air to send reassuring vibes to her, helping her to calm down and speak her mind without getting hysterical.

"He's always there for me, whenever I'm sad, upset, mad or happy. Through everything he's always there. But, something…..changed. The way he looks at me. I saw it, even if he thinks I didn't. He looked at me the way you and Bryce look at each other."

She pauses, collecting herself as I blush furiously.

"But then that changed. When we found Star, I could still see that look in his eyes, except it had changed. It was more guarded, and there was almost something like hate in them. And….and then….he…..he…..yelled. At….me. He said he n-never wanted to s-see me again. And I d-don't know w-why."

Suddenly she burst out sobbing. My hear goes out to her and I take her in my arms. She sobs into my shoulder and I stroke her back, muttering words of prayer to the god of healing. After collecting herself a bit she looks up into my eyes. Her face is streaked with tears and I can see hope in her eyes.

"Xenia…..I know that you're honest. Calvin tells me that. So I want you to answer me honestly. Why did Calvin do that?"

I sigh out loud. I didn't know if I should be the one to tell her, but my stupid conscious would bug me if I didn't tell her the truth.

"Thuyvy." I begin. "Do you know why Calvin went away from the camp for so long?"

She shakes her head so I continue. "He went to clear his mind. He thought that the longer he spent away the easier it would be to heal."

She begins to speak, but I put a finger on her lips to quiet her. "He was in love with you Thuyvy. When you rejected him, he was hurt down to his very core. His heart was broken and no matter how cheerful he seemed, he was always sad. So he tried to get away. It worked for a while, but when he came back and saw you again, so did the pain. And then he saw you kissing that other guy and it just blew him up. All the emotions that he'd been keeping bottled up inside him just exploded. All the hate, frustration and hurt. That's why he ran away. That's why he doesn't want to see you again. I'm sorry Thuyvy, but you hurt him really bad. I don't know how you'll fix it."

Slowly she sinks to the ground. Her eyes are wide and she shakes her head in disbelief. My heart going out to her again, I use the night air to take her emotions from her and put her to sleep.

As soon as she's asleep, I feel her emotions wash over me. I fall to the ground with her, overwhelmed by the power of her emotions. Disbelief and knowledge clash into each other. She knew what I was saying was true, but she didn't want to believe it. Sadness over his leave, made tears streak down my face. Anger she had been feeling towards herself surged through my body. Dozens of emotions raced through my brain and tugged at my heart strings.

"Bryce…" I whisper in agony.

Suddenly I feel two strong arms around me pulling me up from the ground. I clench my teeth and whisper Thuyvy's name. Slowly, one of the arms around me disappears and I feel another body beside mine.

"Inside…" I start, and less than a second later, we're back in the cabin.

"Put her on the bed…." I manage to get out.

I feel myself being let on the ground gently, and I brace myself against the hard floor. Sensing Bryce move to put Thuyvy on the bed, I immediately throw up as soon as he's moved away. Shuddering I can feel his alarm through the air. Mere moments later, he's by my side helping me to my feet.

"Bottle…..on the shelf….." I gasp out.

I could feel his hesitation to leave me, even for the slightest second, so I try to get there by myself. Then he leaves and is back a moment later with the bottle.

Grabbing it, I unscrew the cap and breathe out of my mouth into the bottle. Thuyvy's emotions flood out of me and into the bottle. Quickly I screw the cap back on and collapse to the floor.

Before I hit the ground I feel Bryce grab me. Holding me in his arms, he gently strokes my face. I breathe deeply in and out of my mouth, calming down. My eyes open to see his worried face and I smile.

"Thanks." I say.

"What in bloody Hades happened?" He asked me in concern.

"Thuyvy wanted to know about Calvin….Kien." I say, correcting myself, seeing the confusion on his face. "She got really upset, so I took her bad emotions from her and put her to sleep. However, her emotions were stronger than I had anticipated and they nearly overwhelmed me. When I take someone's emotions I can usually control it, but the emotions sometimes are more magnified when I absorb them. When they are, I have to store them somewhere."

I show him the bottle filled with Thuyvy's emotions, now swirling around in orange, blue and red colors.

"Bottles generally work."

"I didn't know you could absorb emotions." He says to me, both impressed and concerned.

"I'm also really sensitive to other people's emotions. I learned about it while you were away. So you can thank Nyx for those gifts."

I see him about to curse my goddess, so I smile and quickly kiss him on the mouth. "Don't you go cursing my mother. I'm fine. Really I am."

"Well, in that case…"He starts, lifting me up to my feet. "You're coming with me."

"What about Star and Thuyvy? We can't just leave them here."

"They'll be fine. I put a protective barrier around the cabin."

I smile and he smiles back, grabbing my hand. Suddenly we're out of the cabin, running bare foot across the grass. The cool night air rushes through my hair and I laugh in delight.

We slow down and then stop next to the lake, under a huge oak tree. The brilliant stars twinkle merrily at us, as if they were happy that we were. A huge crescent moon shines down on us, illuminating the area around us. I sigh peacefully, and then look over at Bryce.

Catching my breath, I stare at him in amazement. He was still wearing his blue jeans that made him look like a runway model, but he had taken off his t-shirt. The moon light glittered off his muscles perfectly, and his dark brown hair draped over the side of his face. He looked like a god, and I wondered for about the millionth time how I deserved him. Then he looks over at me and his eyes, now a deep warm brown, gaze into mine.

"Have I ever told you that you have the most heavenly eyes, love?" He whispers into my ear as he moves closer to me.

"Have I ever told you that you look like an angel? My dark angel." He whispers again, placing his hands on my waist.

I'm breathing harshly now, and I wrap my arms around his neck as I whisper back. "Have I ever told you that you're too good for me?"

Moving forward towards him, so that my lips are brushing his, I whisper again. "Have I ever told you that you are the kindest person I know, darling?"

He closes his eyes and moans softly at the name I called him. "Have I ever told you, that you make me melt? That you're the most tempting thing in the world?"

He pauses, caressing his lips against mine. "I want to say it so bad…."

"Then why don't you?" I ask, looking up into his eyes.

I gaze into his warm brown eyes, as I watch them turn a deep topaz yellow. He brings his hands up to my face, and gently brushes his thumbs against my cheeks. Slowly he moves in closer. I can feel his breath on mine, his skin touching mine and finally, his lips touching mine.

He fiercely begins kissing me, pulling me closer to him. I move closer, wrapping my arms tighter around his neck. His hands trail down to my back as he draws lines of desire. I moan softly and kiss him harder, feeling his passion rising.

Slowly he stops, pulling away from me. He gently removes my arms from around his neck and he walk to the water. Sadly, I watch him go. But I know he needs to collect himself, so I go lie down by the tree and wait.

I close my eyes and breathe softly, my hands on my stomach. After a few minutes, I feel Bryce walking back up to the tree and lying down beside me. Turning my head to the side, I see him lying there right next to me, his eyes now a silver color. My hand finds his and squeezes tightly as I smile at him.

"I'm a coward." He says to me.

"That doesn't sound like the Bryce I know." I speak back to him softly. "The Bryce I know wouldn't say that out loud to save his life. You're daring and brave and no one else I know would be able to take down ten Lastrygonians single-handed."

"Love…." He starts, kissing me on the lips gently.

"Stop talking." He finishes, kissing me lightly again.

Predicting that he's going to say something important, I nod and place a protective barrier around us using the night air.

"Xenia…."He whispers, my heart fluttering at the way he says my name.

"I love you." He whispers again breathlessly.

I smile and my whole face brightens. I kiss him passionately on the lips and then gaze into his silver eyes.

"I love you too." I whisper back, my whole heart going into those little words.

He smiles, and we both laugh. We kiss again and again. We laugh and talk about absolutely nothing, resting in each other's arms. His warmth surrounds me, and I rest my head on his chest, listening to his heart beat. The night speeds away from us, but we enjoy it. Our love for each other only grows, and I feel a bond emerge with him. Not only the bond of love, but the gods bless us with an empathy link. We smile at each other when we notice the empathy bond come into place, and we laugh. Now we'd be able to communicate without words, we'd be able to tell what the other was thinking and we would know, no matter what, where the other person was. We kiss passionately again and we gently fall asleep in each other's arms. As we sleep, Nyx watches over us, and as Dawn emerges over the horizon they smile at each other sharing knowing smiles. They watch over us together, knowing that we would last forever.

**Kelly: It was an Accident**

It was an accident, I swear. Sure, I was playing with a lighter, and they told us not to do that in school, but who listens to them anyway? They had no idea what they were talking about. They didn't know the warmth of the flames, the way it speaks when the wind is high. I love fire more than it loves me.

Unfortunately, lighters have a tendency of being… a bit slippery after you drop them in the sink. I'm not saying I did… okay, I did. I dropped it in the sink while I was playing with it, and it got wet, so I dried it and went outside to make sure it still worked. Well, after trying it a few dozen times, I um… lost control of my temper and threw it on the ground. That's when it started working again.

I could tell by the way the blue and orange flames darted out of the top and onto the green grass. Had it been early morning with dew on the ground, it might have been no problem. But it was the middle of the night, and everything was nice and dry. So naturally, the grass caught on fire.

It wasn't my fault, I was just playing with the lighter… okay, maybe it was my fault. But I don't think so, because some god probably made something happen that knocked the lighter out of my hands. Seriously, that sort of thing happened a lot.

Anyway, the grass started catching fire, so I threw some water out of a jar on it. Turns out it was a jar full of gasoline (who puts gasoline in a jar?) and the entire thing started burning even higher. It latched onto the nearest building, and things started getting even worse from there. That's when the screaming started, and people started rushing out of various buildings.

There was nothing wrong, it was just a giant inferno threatening to engulf the entire camp in flames… right? There's nothing wrong with that… it's just fire, and it loves us.

Then my shoes started to burn, and I realized that fire didn't love me as much as I loved it. Not by a long shot. So that's when I started running and screaming for help. I just hoped it wouldn't get any worse… unfortunately, nobody really minds what I hope.

**Kristy: Prophecy**

"The quest you seek will end in vain," Rachel began ominously. "Nothing will stop the endless pain; if you must, head towards the mountains; and fill a bottle from Apollo's fountains; lose some heroes, but find some others; through and through, hold onto each other; the one who is gone shall return; under siege, once safe lands will burn; the Earth will shake, and time will slow; in due time, the true villain will show."

She swooned slightly, and I caught her before she fell.

"I'm… I'm okay," she said dizzily as I helped her to her feet. "I really don't like doing this all of the time, but I guess you guys really needed one, and Apollo felt like giving you one. Say, that was a neat trick back there for getting me here. What's it called?"

"Shadow travel," I replied, unwilling to go into detail, as I honestly didn't know how to explain what happened. It just… happened. Shadow travel involved Hades, the children of Hades, and hellhounds. Basically, we could use darkness and go anywhere we wanted by sacrificing a lot of energy.

"So what did I say?" Rachel asked.

"Uh, something about quest in vain, um, endless pain…" I couldn't remember the entire thing. Luckily for us, Michael, in his leg cast, had tape recorded the entire prophecy. He played it back for Rachel, A.K.A. Red, to hear. She nodded slowly as the tape ended, her green eyes filled with concern and anxiety. I couldn't blame her. Nobody wanted to make a bad prophecy

"That was… it wasn't good," she said to no one in particular. "Percy… I know I can't stop you, but…"

"I still have to try, Rachel," he said determinedly. "She… I can't just give up on her. I have to do something about this. I have to try."

"Percy, it's doomed to fail," Michael said logically, sitting up in his bed. "We all don't want this to happen, but it is a must. We can't do crap about it, so we have to find a way to get back at Loki for this. We can't afford to let emotions get the better of us."

"I. Will. Save her," Percy choked out through gritted teeth. "Even if I have to do it alone."

With that, he stormed out of the medical cabin, and straight to the Big House, no doubt to get supplies and helpers for the quest he was about to undertake.

"I'm sorry," Rachel whispered.

"It isn't your fault, Rachel," Michael assured her. "Prophecies are made through you. You're the vessel, not the maker of the prophecy. You can't really see the future, but Apollo can, and he speaks through you. I'm just glad that he doesn't make prophecies in haiku or something."

Rachel laughed a little. "I guess you're right. But still…" she looked wistfully in Percy's direction. "I hate not being able to do anything about Annabeth."

"I know but…" I paused abruptly. I smelled a familiar, unpleasant scent. "Is that…?"

"Smoke?" Michael asked. "I believe so."

We all looked at one another, and Michael let out a long string of cuss words. "Why does everything have to go wrong all at once?"

Then things got even worse.

"We're under attack!" somebody warned from outside. "Incoming Laistrygonian divisions!"

Michael swore again and pressed the button next to his bedside that activated the alarm that told everybody "Hey, we're under attack!"

If anybody wasn't already running and screaming outside because of the fire, they were doing it now because of the invasion of some sort of monster army.

If the status of things at the moment was anything like how the battle was going to turn out, we were doomed. Some buildings were on fire, and there was chaos everywhere. Nobody was trying to get everyone organized. The only exceptions were the security teams, who were distributing weapons and armor, and trying to get ready to stave off the attack.

I ran outside, sword in hand. There was no sense in dying without a fight. If there was a fight to be had, it was with those guys.


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER 5**

**Michael: Battle Stations**

I wheeled into the operations room as quickly as I could. I tell you, it isn't easy. The wheelchair was bad enough, but having my leg dangling in front of my head like a lure didn't help either.

"Status report!" I ordered.

"Incoming hostiles from all directions," the redhead on the radar informed me.

"Visual contact?" I asked.

"Troop carriers from the sea, APCs and tanks from the road, and they have inbound gunship support. It doesn't look good, sir."

"I didn't ask for your opinion, corporal," I growled. "I asked for the facts." I turned to the blonde girl manning the communications rig. "How are the defenses coming?"

"Not good, sir," she informed me. "The fire is almost out, but there's still chaos, and we can't get anyone organized. And the Aphrodite cabin is all out of it because they had a fight right before this happened. Only the security team is ready."

"Call all of our operatives, and anyone not inside the camp right now," I commanded. "We need all of the reinforcements that we can get. That includes Percy, Calvin, Nico, and the Hunters. I don't know if they'll make it in time, but we can hope."

"Aye, sir," she said, turning around and taking out her cell phone.

I turned back to the radar guy. "ETA to arrival?" I asked.

"Ten minutes, sir," he said with a slight quiver in his voice. Newbies, of course. He'd never seen a massive battle like this. I doubted any of the ops crew had.

There was only one chance of holding the enemy off for any period of time. "Activate the automatic defenses," I demanded. "That's the Bronze Dragon, our automaton division, and raise the walls."

Bob, the son of Hephaestus, got off his seat and ran out to activate the automatons. The other few people just blinked at me. I sighed. They had no idea what the wall was. Annabeth had developed it in conjunction with Bob and I to defend the camp. It was finished about a week ago. I would activate it myself, since no one else had a clue what I was talking about.

"Remaining members, arm yourselves, and prepare to defend the Big House," I called over my shoulder as I left.

I wheeled outside as quickly as I could, passing by the Apollo cabin, where the campers were all stringing bows, loading quivers, and filling bottles with nectar, the drink of the gods able to heal almost any wound. Derek was making sure everyone was prepared for battle, and I was glad at least one cabin was going to be ready for combat.

I maneuvered over the dirt and ashes to the Hephaestus cabin, where the wall activation mechanism was. I opened the box with the code, then inserted my activation key. I turned it, and pressed the glowing red button, which turned on the warning to get inside the camp's boundaries. Within seconds, the wall began to rise out of the dirt in the distance, rising around the camp as a solid mass of celestial bronze, ten feet thick. It would hold against tank fire for about twenty minutes, if we were lucky.

I rolled back to where the security team was setting up the flak guns. They had shields strapped to their backs, swords in baldrics, and new U.S. Army rifles in their hands. Not to mention grenades and a belt full of ammo. They were the elite fighting force of the camp, designed to protect it at all costs.

"Status report," I commanded as I approached. One of the guys looked up and headed towards me.

"Sir," he began. "We have the flak gun almost assembled, and we're all armed. The fire has been put out, and the Hermes and Ares cabins are almost ready for combat. Poseidon cabin and Zeus cabin are also almost ready. Athena cabin is currently distributing weapon and setting up defenses around the Big House and medical cabin. Apollo cabin is tending to Aphrodite cabin, and both are nearing readiness for combat." He finished with a salute.

"Excellent work, soldier," I acknowledged him with a nod. "I want you and your men to split into three groups. One will operate the flak gun and guard the cabin cluster here. I want another squad defending the Big House. The last group will be at the beachhead with Ares, Poseidon, and Hermes cabins to hold off the monsters coming in from there. We have gunships inbound, and…" I didn't get to finish my sentence before two helicopters sped over my head, spitting minigun fire on the roofs of the cabins.

"Flak ready!" Jack yelled at the men. "Nicholas, Ryan, Arthur, Chuck, Louis, I need you five to secure the Big House. Ryan, you're in command."

"Yessir," they mumbled as they headed off to their positions.

"Leon, Geoffrey, Brian, Chris, Dex, you're with me," Jack commanded. "We're going to reinforce the beachhead." He turned to the rest of the men. "The rest of you, stay here and use the flak gun, as well as guard the cabins area. We have to move immediately. We do not have much time."

The team split up and headed to their assigned positions. As for me, I headed back to the Big House, where ops was, and looked for my trusty sniper rifle. I planned on using it.

**Nico: So Soon**

With the last war barely a year over with, I was being called into the fighting yet a second time. This time, they had the ability to text message me instead of a good old-fashioned Iris message. Didn't anyone have the decency to talk to your face anymore? Or was talking too old-fashioned?

I strolled into camp after shadow-traveling from a town in North Dakota, exploring a call regarding a possible haunting. It was a false alarm, as far as I could tell. Besides, the camp was much more interesting, especially now that some of the girls would actually _talk_ to me, instead of regarding me in cold, stony silence. It was great to finally be accepted in this world. It also helped that there were a lot of new, younger campers, meaning my age. Percy and the others might be older than me, but that doesn't give them the right to just trample all over me. A son of Hades has pride… and a sword that can steal souls.

So when I walked into camp that day, a guy in a wheelchair with his leg hanging over his head escorted me immediately to Annabeth, who was lying in the hospital cabin.

"Annabeth?" I gasped upon seeing her unusually pale, with several wires attached to, or inside of her body. Her honey-blonde hair was turning a ghastly white, as if she had suddenly aged seventy years in the few weeks that we had been apart.. "What… what happened?"

She smiled faintly. "It's nice to… see you, too, Nico."

"What happened to her?" I demanded angrily, my fists shaking in rage. "Who… what in Hades… what the hell happened to her?"

"She's been poisoned," the guy in the wheelchair informed me. "It was Loki, god of fire and trickery. I'm not sure you're familiar with him…"

"Oh, we've met," I said, recollecting the jerk who dumped me in a trashcan once while I was searching for my mom's grave. He had led me on a wild goose chase, claiming he knew where it was, and ended up throwing me in a trashcan and setting it on fire. He liked to mess with me, as I was alone, and the son of Hades. I'd wanted to get even for a long time. But with this… with Annabeth… I didn't know what "even" could possibly be. How do you get back at a god who can't die after he kills one of your closest friends?

"We need your help," she whispered, the beeping of the pulse machine increasing in pace as her heart struggled to pump to keep her alive. "Camp is… under attack."

"Anything for an old friend," I whispered. I patted her hand. "You need your rest. Get to sleep." Thanks to the power of modern day drugs, she fell asleep the moment that I left the building, following the lead of the guy in the wheelchair.

"Right now, I think we need you at the beachhead," he told me, rolling as fast as he could with a sniper rifle in his lap. "There are enemy landers landing any moment now. We're going to sink them, but if that doesn't work… we're gonna need the most powerful thing we've got with us at the moment."

"Where's Percy?" I asked, confused. "Where is he? Shouldn't he be here to help fight them off? Isn't he the most powerful thing we've got?"

"He's trying to get the cure for Annabeth," the Asian in a wheelchair informed me. "Apparently there's some sort of 'cure-all' medicine from Apollo's fountains known as 'panacea'. Percy is trying to find it right now… even though Rachel's prophecy said that it would be in vain."

"Panacea," I repeated. "I've heard of it. It's said to be even more dangerous than nectar. What is he thinking?"

"He wants to save Annabeth," Michael sighed. "Love makes you weak and headstrong. Compassion leaves you as an open target for pain and suffering. Not only for yourself, but for anyone and everyone that needs you when you're off on some sort of quest like this. Love… who needs it?"

"Some people say they need love to live," I said offhandedly.

"Yeah, well Aphrodite is… she can rot in Hades," he muttered. "Air is more important."

Then we heard the crashing of waves at the beach. There were several cheers that I perceived to mean that the landing boats had successfully been sunk. As we approached, we saw that several of the dark-haired sons of Poseidon were standing around, causing the waves to swell, tempests to appear, and maelstroms to occur. And they were laughing their heads off in typical "destruction is so fun" fashion. To be honest, I half-expected the fight to end right there with the sinking of those landers… my thought was way off the mark.

Out of the dark swells of the water emerged the half-dog, half-seal, telekines. They rushed forward, foaming at the mouth, and barking for blood.

"Seafood tonight!" one howled. "The children of the sea king are here for our revenge!"

I summoned about fifty skeletons, and followed them to the coast, where the fight was raging with the children of Poseidon and the unknown masses of telekines. They were using nets, swords, spears, tridents, and more different weapons than I could count, or even begin to describe. They were also pushing us away from the coast, even with my skeletons helping out.

The rest of the children of Hades were stationed near the area of the wall that the tanks were trying to bust open with constant shelling. The Apollo kids were stationed near the medical cabin and the Big House, where they were needed. Aphrodite kids were with the Hades kids. Ares and Hermes cabins were backing up the Poseidon cabin and myself at the beachhead. Hephaestus kids were prepping up new weapons and automatons for battle. The last son of Dionysus was with the Hades and Aphrodite cabins, and the security forces were spread all over the place. The smoldering wreckages of two of Atlas' Cobra attack helicopters were scattered among the camp somewhere.

The defenses weren't even all high-tech. The Big House was being fortified with bags of rice instead of sandbags, or even decent walls. Some of the places simply had spears stuck in the ground. The beach was not even fortified. We only had people to fight back the constant wave of monsters. No automated defenses, and no guns, other than that of the security team.

Despite that, we managed to push them back into the water before the hellhounds started appearing from behind us. They assaulted the Hermes cabin from behind, causing confusion among our ranks, allowing the telekines to push us back towards land, and sandwiching us between the sea-dogs and the hellhounds. The battle was _not_ looking good.

**Bryce: Gone**

The worst moment of your life is realizing that the love of your life has disappeared without a trace. The moment that I opened my eyes, I knew something was terribly wrong. There was no beautiful girl lying in my arms. My dark angel was nowhere to be found. That was the main thing.

On another note, there were demigods running around everywhere, preparing for battle. In fact, some were already fighting hellhounds that had made their way into the camp. I stood up and shook my head. Something was wrong. A lot of somethings.

"ARGH!" somebody fighting nearby screamed as he was tackled to the ground by a hellhound.

There was a lot of chaos and disorder. We weren't ready for the attack, or even remotely organized. And still, no sign of Xenia. She couldn't have just disappeared. But maybe, just maybe, she had been taken by them. But why had they not taken me as well? What did they want, and just who were they? The attack was so abrupt, so out of the blue. Who would be disrupting the peace now? All of those thoughts floated in my head, but the primary thought was of Xenia. She had disappeared, and I was going to find the answer, at whatever cost.

Our faint empathy link pulsed somewhere in my heart. She was in danger, and she wasn't in the camp. If that was so… I looked around at the chaos. That meant that there was little further reason to remain here. They could handle themselves without me. It sounded selfish, even to me, but with Xenia in trouble, there could be no question of what came first. Besides, they would be fine.

I headed off into the woods, where the darkness swallowed me, and the mother of my dark angel took me to where I wanted to go, using the night as a transport. I would find her, and whoever had taken her was going to pay dearly.

**Rachel: Line in the Sand**

Clarisse, the unusually buff counselor of Ares cabin had drawn a line in the sand. (And Ashley thought _I_ was buff?) She had declared it the line of no retreat. We would never let the enemy cross that line. In theory it sounded heroic. In practice, it was impossible. The relentless flow of demon dog/seals made it physically impossible to not let the enemy cross the stupid line that Clarisse had drawn. She tried, and so did the rest of us, but some things are just not possible, as Clarisse realized. She ordered, reluctantly, for us to retreat.

We inched backwards from the tide of enemies, dragging our giant shields, and trying not to stab any of our friends with our spears. It was hard enough without the constant pressure of telekines scraping against our shields and tossing spears at us. Luckily, some emo kid in front of me, named Chris, kept his shield above my head and prevented me from getting impaled on the telekines' giant forks.

And then there were creepy skeletons fighting, too. You'd expect skeletons to be bad guys, but you would be expecting wrong. The skeletons were actually on our side. Some little kid with some weird aviator jacket was summoning them out of the ground, and they were actually pretty useful when it came to fighting. Not that Clarisse was overly fond of them, but not that that mattered.

Even though battles are generally exciting, dragging a shield back slowly tends to be rather BORING. So I let my mind wander. Unfortunately, it wandered to the realm where Georgie's voice is dominant and starts talking about cute guys all the time, and how jealous I am. That realm is not a nice place to be, because it gets me really mad. Why?

Because freaking Georgie thinks I'm jealous of her. About what? She met an emo looking guy named Michael who isn't even cute (at least to me) and doesn't even like her, and she thinks I'm jealous. Someone has to get her head out of the clouds, I swear. I'd never met a girl quite like Georgie, who could obsess about a guy who didn't like her, and think that other people were jealous of her. A girl like that has some problems. I'm sorry, but it's true. If you're going to like somebody and obsess about them, they should at least be cute. It's not an insult, it's the truth.

Lost in thought, I bumped into Chris and fell down, exposing myself to the sharp spears of the mass of demon dogs. I shut my eyes and expected to feel the sharp sting of rusty fishing hooks stabbed into my face, but instead, I felt the sensation of someone dragging my on my back. I opened my eyes, and saw that Chris had taken my place in the phalanx, and Ashley was pulling me.

"Ashley Hanson, let go of me," I commanded. "I'm fine, I'm not dead. Freaking let go!"

Instead of letting go, she helped me to my feet. "Are you okay?" she asked, surveying me up and down, her eyes wide. "I mean… you're not hurt, are you?"

"Of course not!" I snapped. "Why would I be."

"It's just… there's a lot of people hurt right now," she said, nodding her head in her special way. She gestured towards the medical cabin and Big House, where I saw stretcher upon stretcher being moved from inside of the buildings to back outside. There were medics swarming the area, even as a few security team members popped off a few rounds at enemies that had somehow bypassed our lines.

I gulped, and was glad that I wasn't one of the wounded.

**Kien/Calvin: The Choice**

I panted heavily, letting my sword fall to my side. It hadn't been much more than a minor skirmish compared to what I was used to. The battle for New York, the Battle of the Labyrinth… so many more that I had lived past, but this one had probably scared me the most. Not because there were bigger monsters, or more. It was because I was scared of losing her, that is, Kira.

I didn't have to be scared, of course. She knew how to take care of herself, as well as the other orphans at the center. Still, I had developed such a quick bond with her in the day or so that we'd known each other, it was scary… scary to think about losing her so quickly after we had just met.

The battle was over, and nobody seemed hurt, but bad news was on the way. There was a new text on my phone, informing me that camp was under attack, and that I needed to return immediately to help sort things out. I knew I had an obligation. I couldn't just abandon the camp. But there was the fact that _she_ was still there. Coming back could have meant that I would have seen her again. I didn't want to see her again. I wanted her gone, and out of my life. I was happy, content with what I had.

Kira was beautiful, sweet, and most importantly, she loved me, too. You don't really get that very often in life. She was safe, and that was all that mattered.

"What's wrong?" Kira asked, seeing my face deep in contemplation.

"Camp's under attack," I muttered, putting my phone back into my pocket. "I don't really want to go back… but… all of my friends are there… I can't let them die."

"Then don't," she said fiercely. "The Kien that I know wouldn't just sit around and watch as all of his friends are slaughtered. He would join in and die valiantly amongst his fellows. Am I right, or do I not know you at all?"

I suppose I neglected to mention her fiery temper. Her temper was probably about as hot as the lightning that shot out of the end of her sword… that's hot. You don't need to know how hot, just know that it is.

"You're right," I sighed. "But you're here, and I don't know if you're going to be safe."

"Well then I'm coming with you," she said stubbornly. "I will not let you do something that you will regret for the rest of your life. We're going to your camp, and we're going to fight back whatever is attacking. We've met Hel and come back in one piece. We've taken on Loki together, and hoards of trolls and undead Viking minions. This is a piece of cake. Right?"

"Right," I breathed, pulling her in for a hug. She stopped me by putting her hands on my chest and holding me back.

"We're going to do this together," she told me firmly. "If you're scared of me getting hurt, you can keep an eye on me… and I get to keep an eye on you. No wandering off, okay?"

I nodded. "Okay."

"Good," she whispered. And she closed her eyes and kissed me, full in the mouth. I can't explain how it felt, exactly. It felt like the butterflies in my stomach had laid a million eggs each, and all of them had hatched into fully grown butterflies in a second. I felt like the entire room was spinning, and I wanted it to stop so I could get off, but was too busy enjoying the sensation of her lips on mine. It was alien, foreign. The electricity flowing through my body was probably partly due to her heritage of Thor, but I couldn't tell. Disjointed thoughts wandered my head. Was this real? Was I dreaming? Who am I? The only clear thing was that I wanted it to last forever, instead of three seconds.

"We should get going," she said abruptly as we pulled apart.

"I, um, how are we going to get there?" I said, trying to pull myself together.

"Lightning travel," she explained quickly, handing me a new quiver full of arrows that I dumped into my magic quiver to refill it. "Are you ready to go? Do you have everything?"

"Sword, shield, arrows, bow, hat, yeah," I said, quickly running off a list of all of my current weapons.

"Just think about where we're going, and keep that in your head," she commanded. She wrapped her arms tightly around me. "Now hold on tight."

I closed my eyes, pulling her in close. I kept thinking about camp, about my friends, about where it was. I remembered the way the beach looked on sunny days, and how Mr. D yelled at people and threatened to turn them into grapevines. I felt the hairs on the back of my head tingle for a moment, and the next second, the sounds of the orphanage were replaced by the noises of heavy battle.

I opened my eyes, and in a flash, Kira and I were back to back, swords in hand. We were being surrounded by hellhounds, Laistygonians, dracanae, and telekines.

"Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum," one of the Laistygonians growled. "I smell the blood of a daughter of Thor. Be she live or be she dead, soon she will die." The Laistygonian laughed, amused by his own pathetic joke.

"Laugh at this," Kira said, lunging forward, and stabbing the giant in the face, turning him into dust. She jumped back into position behind me. "Sorry, I got a little carried away."

"With that piece of crap line that he said?" I asked skeptically. "You did the world a huge favor."

"She killed Shrek!" one of the telekines snarled. "Get her!" Then they began barking and trying to kill us. Basically, (I only wish I were kidding) they lined up and jumped at us one by one, so that we were standing there and hitting them one at a time. It was pathetic at best. The zombie vikings showed more brains than the telekines. They were likely younglings, fresh out of How-to-eat-a-Demigod preschool. Basically, they were hyperactive, whiny, and dumb.

As the last of the telekines faded into dust, the remaining Laistygonians, dracanae, and hellhounds actually started using their heads and coordinating their attacks. Unfortunately, they were so slow that Kira slashed half of them into dust before they even finished making their plan. The rest were disposed of very quickly.

That's when my eyes turned to where the battle was actually heating up. There was a giant hole in the wall, and troops of monsters were pouring in, led by… Carlisle, the newcomer to the camp. It figured it was him that led the monsters in. The stranger, the outsider, the catalyst to our destruction. He was laughing as the monsters engaged our resistance force of automatons and demigods trying to hold off the flow of monsters pouring in through the gap. The beachhead wasn't much better, if at all. The telekines were pushing them back towards the Big House, where several demigods lay wounded. Some were firing weapons to hold back a rush of hellhounds, while another group of campers defended the cabins in the distance. Mrs. O'Leary, the tank-sized friendly hellhound was bounding through enemies with her friend the Bronze Dragon.

"We need to retreat back to the Big House," I said through gritted teeth. "We can't keep fighting if we're separated like this. We need to center on one location…" Just then, the army of monsters made a rush at the medical cabin, right next to the Big House. With so many at once, the campers couldn't hold them back. Meanwhile, at the gates, the campers were being overwhelmed.

I looked at Kira, and her blue eyes met my gray ones. "Split up," we said simultaneously. She ran towards the medical cabin, and I headed towards the gap in the wall.

It was chaos at best. There were demigods running back, some were fighting, and nearly everyone was screaming. There were skeletons and automatons holding back the monsters, while some half-bloods tried to fight back. It wasn't enough.

I ran into the battle, slashing at all of my enemies, and trying to prevent any of my friends from dying. That was hard enough, with Kristy, Steven, Daniel Haley, Georgie, Brynne, Cami, Truc… Thuyvy? There were too many people to protect. I saw their many different faces flash by as I fought off, or tried to fight off, the vast sea of enemies. Of course, I wasn't enough. Our lines were being pushed back farther and farther by the constant flow of enemies. We suffered only a few casualties as we were finally pushed to the Big House, where it seemed we would make our final stand… When I say "we" I mean about half of the forces. Half of us found ourselves slipping on the sand near the coast. We were merging with the troops there, but it wasn't enough. We were sandwiched between the two sides of enemies. There were still more telekines emerging from the water, and more enemies pushing us farther back.

That's when I spotted him again. The traitor, the stranger, Carlisle. I didn't care that there were probably two thousand monsters between me and him on the beach. It didn't matter that he had giant spiders flanking him, or that he was taller and stronger than I was. All I knew was that one of my sisters was on the ground in front of him, about to be impaled at the end of his sword.

Not Haley. Not Haley. I couldn't think of anything else.

I prayed to my grandfather for one shot. I quickly knocked the telekine in front of me onto his seal behind, dropped my sword, pulled out my familiar, trusty, bow, and shot one arrow at Carlisle. I followed the arrow in slow motion, rushing forward with my sword again as the arrow made contact. It caught him in the chest at an odd angle, causing him to stumble backwards diagonally. Five seconds later, I had sprinted through the crowd and engaged him in sword combat.

Even wounded he was a formidable enemy. His golden eyes glistened maliciously. Gold? The sudden thought threw my focus off, and he managed to knock me to the ground next to Haley.

"Kronos…?" I spat out as I hit the ground, looking up to his evil smile. I knew it was him. I knew that somehow, someway, he had come back.

He grinned wider upon realizing that I had recognized him. "Indeed, foolish mortal. It would have been wise if you had simply conceded the first time. You would have made an excellent member of my army. Now, you must die."

"Have a taste of this," Haley said suddenly, shooting an arrow right into his mouth. Surprised, the titan lord staggered backwards, giving me the opportunity to stand up and fight him again. He pulled the arrow out of his mouth and spat out a glob of golden ichor. That's when I lunged on him, thrusting as quickly as I could.

It was stupid to fight him, I suppose. I knew that I stood no chance against him. But he seemed so much weaker than before. I thought I could take him. I held my own for maybe a minute before he got me. Parry, parry, block, dodge, counter. The last move left me open for his stroke. He didn't hesitate at all in completing it. I could feel the cold steel lodged in my stomach. I could feel the cold of death setting into my body. My sword dropped to the sand with a dull thud that I couldn't hear above the noise of the battle raging around me. I could hear him laugh. I could hear someone call my name. I heard… a horn?

Even as the life drained out of my body, and I dropped to my knees. I turned my head towards the sea, where Poseidon rode on his chariot, his trident poised in hand. And I smiled slightly to myself as he sent a wave crashing into the titan of time… and myself. As the salty cold sea wrapped around me, dulling all of my senses and dragging me back towards the open ocean, I closed my eyes, and filled my final thoughts with Kira. The way she looked with her blonde hair wet, leaning against the post of the door of her room. I was sorry that I couldn't say good-bye to her.

Sorry, I thought. Sorry, love.

**Haley: Illusion**

I did not believe what I was seeing. To my eyes, it seemed that Kien had died. It seemed that he had been stabbed, then the ocean itself had taken he and his killer in one fell stroke. But that was… it couldn't have happened. The ocean doesn't do that…

Then I turned around and saw Poseidon riding to the coast with an army of Cyclops rushing out of the water to engage the enemies, who were flat out running at the sight of the god. Poseidon… ocean… it really had happened. The proof was right there, yet I didn't want to believe it.

With the help of Poseidon, the remainder of our troops felt a rush of morale and charged, forcing the enemies back up the coast, towards the forest. Left behind were the bodies of wounded and fallen demigods, as well as dryads, satyrs, and automatons. The ground was soaked with blood, grease, and oil. I stayed behind to tend to the wounded instead of rushing forward with everyone else.

I was trying to pop Brynne's arm back into its pocket when I heard a different horn. It was loud and clear – the hunting call of Artemis. In the far distance, I saw several arrows fly out of the woods, and eliminating an entire line of monsters. This sent them into an even greater panic, creating a mad dash to retreat out of the gap in the wall. There was a bottleneck to get out, and several demigods took this time to shoot more and more arrows into the crowd, eliminating as many monsters as they could. Still, vengeance didn't serve when there were people dying from wounds that could be treated instead.

Wounded. I looked back at the coast, hoping that maybe his body would appear, and maybe I could save his life, like he did mine a few minutes ago. But it was nowhere to be found every time the waves washed against the shore, there was blood, but no Kien. My brother was gone.

We weren't really siblings, but we had gotten used to that title after he started calling me his sister, even though we were really more of cousins or something. His grandfather was my father, so he was like my nephew or something. He insisted on calling me his sister, his little sister. He had a lot of little sisters. But even with the setting sun, and the cries of victory from back towards the camp, I couldn't help but feel the sting of losing my older brother. Sure, I had others, but they weren't Kien. Only Kien could ever strive to be, and succeed, at being Kien. Knowing that there would be no replacing him made the loss even deeper.

Victory… but at what cost?

**Thalia: Right On Time, But too Late**

We arrived just in the nick of time. Actually, we were probably a moment too late. Poseidon was the one who arrived just on time. Somehow, the campers had guessed that a god or titan was among the enemy, which, allows other gods to come in and fight. Had there been no god around Poseidon would not have been allowed to join the fight, and perhaps we would have arrived just in time, instead of him.

The Hunters, under the lead of Lady Artemis, appeared silently in the woods just as the tide of monsters headed in our direction. We waited for a few tense moments before the goddess gave the command to let loose our arrows. It had been a swift victory from there.

After the battle, I headed straight for the command center, searching for any sign of Percy or Annabeth. Neither was anywhere to be found. Instead, I met up with an old friend, Michael, who had his leg in a cast, and was rolling around in a wheelchair. Chiron being at a meeting at Olympus, he had been in command, and he did so admirably under the circumstances. Also with him, was Nico DiAngelo, the brother of our lost hunter, Bianca.

He had changed quite a bit since we last met. He was older, more collected. He greeted me with a swift, firm, handshake.

Speaking bluntly, I asked, "Where the hell is Annabeth?"

"She's in the medical cabin due to poisoning," Michael informed me. And sensing my other question, he answered, "and Percy is trying to get the cure for the poisoning."

That's when somebody burst in, completely out of breath. "Annabeth's gone" he panted. "She's…" He fell to the floor and didn't move.

The grip on my bow tightened, and my entire body shook. "WHAT? WHERE IS MY ANNABETH?"

**Thuyvy: …What?**

My eyes opened slowly, and my waking was greeted by darkness. Blinking sleepily, I sat up in bed, wondering if the conversation had been merely a dream. It had seemed so surreal, yet it had made so much sense. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I noticed that the room I was in was completely unfamiliar to me.

I got out of bed, recognizing the room as the cabin that I had walked into when I wanted to talk to Xenia, about Calvin. It was the same, except I could see faint light creeping into the room from the windows, where the sun was rising.

In the corner of the room, I spotted a cradle, likely belonging to Star. I walked towards it slowly, tingling slightly in anticipation of being able to hold that little girl again. But the baby wasn't like I had seen it before. She was so much larger, and she had more hair on her head… black hair.

Her eyelids fluttered open, and she smiled. She didn't look like a newborn anymore, but more like three year old little girl.

"Mommy," she said in a sweet little voice. "Where's Daddy?"

I froze. How long had I been out? The little girl had grown three years since I had last seen her… and she could talk? I shook my head and picked her up, out of the cradle (she was heavy!), and moved towards the doorway.

"Daddy… Daddy's outside," I said, trying to think of something to say. I had no idea who she was referring to, or why she was calling me "Mommy" instead of not saying anything at all. I realized that this was the first time that she had ever woken up. It was scary.

I headed out the door and towards the Big House, where a large number of people were gathered. I was going to get some answers, and I was going to find this little girl's father… but if I was her Mommy…

My thoughts wandered to the last conversation that I remembered. The one with Xenia about how… how Calvin had loved me, and how I had broken his heart. It wasn't too hard to remember, being embedded deep into my memory. It's not everyday that you're told that you broke somebody's heart. Maybe if I found him, he could give me some of the answers that I was looking for. He had a lot of answers. He might have come back…

I searched for somebody to tell me where he was, when I slipped and fell to the ground, making sure that Star didn't touch the Earth. Being without the use of my hands, I landed hard on my butt…

Ow, I thought. I broke my butt.

Using my forearm, I pushed myself from the ground. When I looked at it, it was covered in crimson. I looked down in horror, and noticed that I was standing in grass dewy with blood. I staggered backwards, and straight into somebody's waiting arms. I let out a scream and turned to face the person. There was no need to be alarmed, however. It was only Haley. Perfect.

"Haley," I let out a deep breath. "Just the person I wanted to see. Have you seen Calvin… I mean Kien?" I asked, correcting myself.

She put her hand on my shoulder, past the sleeping little girl in my arms. "Thuyvy… Kien… he's gone."

"He hasn't come back from England yet?" I asked, surprised.

"Thuyvy, he's dead," she said bluntly.

"No…" I didn't want to believe it. "No, he's not… he isn't dead. He can't be. He…"

Deep inside my heart, I could feel that maybe he had died. There was an emptiness that was now explained. And I was sorry that I would never be able to make it up to him.


	6. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER 6**

**Kira: Alone**

"I want to know where the hell Annabeth is!" Thalia yelled, banging her fist on the ping-pong table, causing a few drinks to rattle as it shook.

"Thalia, please, calm down," Chiron, the centaur, said, trying to keep her calm. A temper of the daughter of Zeus was very similar to that of a daughter of Thor… both are quite violent, and if not checked, can produce disastrous results. Judging by the fearful looks around the room, it seemed many knew this… probably firsthand.

"I will not calm down until you tell me where Annabeth is!" she screamed.

"We don't know where she is," someone interjected. "Can you just…"

"I WILL NOT calm down until we know just how my little sister disappeared!"

My thoughts wandered, ignoring the screaming chaos that was Thalia Grace. As they did since I heard the news that night, my thoughts wandered to Kien.

When you're all alone, crying your eyes out, people will tend to avoid you. That's the way it should be. I sat alone on the beach, just trying to come to terms with the fact that he was gone. He was really gone. I left a letter in a bottle on the ocean, hoping, childishly, that he would get it in the afterlife. Whether that be Hades or Asgard.

The door slammed open, snapping me abruptly out of my thoughts. Standing in the doorway with a bottle of pink liquid grasped tightly in his left hand, stood a thin, relatively tall boy with long dark hair and sea green eyes.

"Where the hell is Annabeth?" he demanded.

"Percy…" Chiron began.

"I didn't go all the way to get this," he lifted the bottle of pink stuff. "For nothing. Now where the hell is she?"

"We don't know," Thalia admitted, casting her eyes towards the ground in shame.

"What do you mean you don't know?" he demanded, his free hand clenching into a fist. "I left her here, thinking she'd be safe, and you somehow lost her? How do you lose a person? How the hell do you just let somebody disappear?"

"Percy, we've just been attacked, please calm down," Chiron said calmly.

"Calm down?" Percy exploded. "Calm down? Annabeth is pregnant!"

There was silence in the room. The only noise came from the dripping of water outside and the occasional crack of thunder.

"That… that didn't come out right," he whispered nervously.

"How pregnant is she?" Haley asked immediately.

"About… eight and a half months," Percy estimated.

"What?" Thalia gasped. "She was _that_ pregnant, and we didn't notice? What…? How…? She doesn't look eight months pregnant."

"Well… Aphrodite helped," Percy admitted. "She gave Annabeth clothes that would hide the bulge. I guess they were enchanted or something. She really wanted to help us out."

"No shit," Michael said bluntly. "Somehow she managed to make Annabeth look not pregnant, and all of us were fooled. It would have been better if you had told us about this, we could have done more. Now what do we do? Whoever the hell we're fighting has one of the most powerful daughters of Athena, and one of the most powerful second generation demigods to ever walk this Earth. Does anybody else see a problem with this?"

"Michael, please," somebody said.

"Shut it," Michael said harshly. "We're in the middle of one of the worst tactical blunders I've ever had to face as the co-head of security here at Camp Half-Blood. This is probably one of the worst circumstances in the existence of man. I don't give a damn how young you are, if you're pregnant, we have to know about it. A pregnant demigod attracts more monsters than a pair of normal demigods, or even a group of them. And now we don't have a damn clue where they are… damn."

"Michael is correct," Chiron sighed. "Percy, you should have informed us of this development."

"I'm sorry, Chiron," Percy said, eyes downcast. "It's just… Annabeth didn't… we didn't want to expose our child to all of that scrutiny of being born from teenage parents… our parents… well… everybody would be disappointed in us… are disappointed in us, now."

"Whatever happens, happens," Michael sighed. "We can always ask the oracle where…"

Haley and half of the demigods in the room paled.

"The oracle is missing," Haley gasped.

**Bryce: That was Easy**

From a distance, I saw that the tent was guarded by only two monsters: a dracaena and a laistrygonian. They were easy targets. The rest wasn't as simple, since the tent was actually in the center of the enemy camp, just left of the commander's tent. Even worse was the fact that there were two demigods guarding the commander's tent, meaning that we had been betrayed, or that some demigods had fallen into the wrong hands. Somehow, they had gotten to them before we had. After the reforms following Kronos' downfall, such a development was disastrous.

Aside from the few guards guarding those two vital tents, there were also the scores of monsters patrolling the perimeter of the camp, the magical barriers, the sentry wards, and whoever the hell the commander was.

A bush behind me rustled, and my sword was out instantly at the person's throat. His electric blue eyes were wide with fear, and his hands were up in surrender. His curly blonde hair was messy and long. He had a small forehead, thin lips pulled into a weak smile, and a straight nose. His name was Ray, and he was an old friend from back in the Mexico days.

"Easy there, Bryce," he said as I lowered my sword from his throat. "It's just me. You do recognize me, of course?"

"Ray," I breathed. "How the hell did you find me?"

"I figured you'd be where the action is," he said, nodding towards the garrison of monsters. "I saw them drag in a few prisoners, and I recognized one from a picture you showed me. It seemed logical that you'd be here."

"You saw Xenia?" I breathed a sigh of relief, having my fear of an incorrect empathy link alleviated. "Thank Dawn. Is she alright?"

"If you mean your girlfriend, then yeah, she's alright," he said in his thick southern accent. "The only kidnapped a bunch of girls, and none of them are really hot, no offense."

"None taken," I said absent-mindedly. "Do you have a plan to save them? Or do we have any help? Anything?"

He laughed and shook his head. I felt the hope draining out of me.

"Are you kiddin'? Yer talkin' 'bout me, Bryce. I've always got help. You remember Becca and Lenard, don't you?"

From the same bush that Ray had come from, emerged a short blonde-haired girl with thick, full lips, high forehead, and warm, brown eyes. Along with her, was her twin brother, dark brown hair, black, cold eyes, the same full lips and high forehead. He was tall and carried a scythe made of stygian iron, slightly taller than he was. Becca had her white bow and hunting daggers, gifts from Artemis.

Becca ran up to me and kissed me on the cheek. "Hiya Bryce, it's good to see you again."

I blushed a deep crimson. "Becca, I do have a girlfriend…"

She rolled her eyes. "I have French blood somewhere down the line. The French frequently kiss each other on the cheek as greeting."

"I'm not French," I spluttered. "Kindly never do that again."

She sighed. "Alright, alright."

Then Lenard shook my hand. "It's good to see you again," he said in his soft, deep voice. "We'll get Xenia back, don't you worry."

Despite his reserved appearance, Lenard was a formidable opponent in battle. His scythe cut through legions of monsters, easily and quickly absorbing all of their matter into its cold, iron frame. He could then channel the monsters' energy into summoning skeletons and other undead warriors to assist him in combat. Other than that, he was a really nice guy, and very protective of his twin sister.

"So… do you have a plan?" I asked Ray again.

He smiled. "I don't know, do I?"

**Georgie: Kidnappers = Mean**

Fighting was really bad enough, but getting kidnapped by a bunch of ugly-looking monsters was even worse. And, not only did they ruin my hair, they also broke my nails! But like, the good part would be when Michael came to save me from all of this and then we'd fall in love and live happily ever after. And we'd be so cute together!

But before that could happen, I had to sit, with my hands tied, in a dirty, smelly tent. In this, dirty, smelly tent, there was me, Xenia, Rachel, and some other red-headed girl. That red-headed girl wasn't even pretty. The least the monsters could do, was kidnap all super-hotties, hello? I mean, green eyes are sooo last year. At least Rachel was here, so I could talk to somebody.

"Rachel!" I hissed. Rachel and the red-head looked up. I ignored the red-head and continued talking to Rachel. "When do you think Michael is coming to rescue me?"

"I don't know, Georgie, you tell me," Rachel replied. I swear, that girl could have sooo much sass sometimes. "You're the one that knows everything about him. I mean, you sat in a tree and watched him for like a week."

"Fine, you're right," I agreed. "I do know when he's going to rescue me… I just haven't figured that out yet."

Rachel rolled her eyes.

"Are you talking about Michael Dinh?" the red-head asked.

Since she wasn't being as RUDE as Rachel, I decided to talk to her.

"Yes I am," I confirmed. "Isn't he totally the cutest thing on the face of the planet? I mean, strong, smart guys are totally in this year, right?"

"…Sure," the red-head said uncertainly. "By the way, my name's Rachel, too, but you can call me Red. A lot of people call me that now, after my initials. I don't know who started it, but I like it better than Rachel. It's much more unique."

I second-guessed my decision to talk to this girl. She seemed like a bit of a dork.

"Anyway, Michael isn't actually going to come first," she said. "Bryce is actually going to try to free us, but only succeed in saving Xenia. Then, after that, when they decide to move the camp again, the Hunters and some of the campers, including Michael, will come to save us. That's when… um… shoot, I can't see anymore."

"What do you mean?" I demanded. "You like, just told me what's going to happen! You can't stop now!"

"I… I would but—" her words stuck in her throat as somebody walked through the flap of the tent.


	7. Chapter 7

**Welcome to Chapter 7. Wow, this has gone by pretty quickly. Georgie never fails to crack me up, and Lexi... I had to put her into a oneshot thing, but she's a part of this chapter, but her language rating is through the roof, so I was forced (by my conscience) to put her somewhere else. If you want to read her part, it is Lexi Meets Bryce. And yes, she's angry. And I apologize about Chronicles of the Demigod Army... at one point I lost my train of though and the story couldn't go on... and my friend wasn't able to post anything for me. So now it's been about a year and I'm back for more. Are you guys ready?**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians... but the OCs are mine... I'm pretty sure.**

**CHAPTER 7**

**Georgie: The Creeper**

Being tied up all day is really, really bad. Your hair, your nails, and your clothes all get messed up! But that's not even the worst part. Sometimes there's a real pervert as your kidnapper who's really weird and like, does really creepy things.

So, I was sitting in the tent, listening to Red talk about something while trying to do my hair when HE comes in. He's totally ugly, with a squashed nose and really creepy bloodshot eyes and with no hair. And no eyebrows, either! I mean… ew… He was really, really creepy. Plus, he was smiling, and had like shark teeth or something.

Anyway, he walked in and looked at all of us, some spit going down his right chin. Then (this is the scary part) he walked right up to Rachel and put one of his arms around her! I mean, that is like the scariest thing there is.

"Get off of me," Rachel scoffed, trying to nudge him off.

"I'll get off when I want to," the creeper said, kissing her cheek.

"Seriously, get off, or I will punch you." Rachel was getting mad, and that was bad, because being mad is not good for you, and also, when Rachel's mad, she can punch really hard.

"You can't with your hands tied," the bald guy chuckled, running his hand along her side. "Soon it's just going to be you… and me… and you're going to enjoy what's coming."

Rachel kneed him where it hurts, and he stumbled back in pain and surprise. "Heh, feisty," he gasped with a smile. "Just how I like 'em. I'll see you later… alone… And then we'll see what you can do when you're tied down to a bed." The creeper slid out of the room, licking his lips.

The moment he was gone, I gasped. "Rachel! That guy was so creepy! And ugly, too. I mean, he's a total creeper. Did you see the way that he was feeling you all over? Oh my gosh! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Georgie," Rachel said calmly. "Relax. I'm going to get out of here before that creep has a chance to do anything with me."

"You're going to take me with you, right?" I pleaded.

"Sorry, Georgie," she apologized. "But I don't think that we can both make it. Don't worry, when I bust out of here, I'll bring back help."

"Well… wait, you're leaving me here?" I demanded. "Rachel, how could you? I thought we were like that." I tried to make a hand gesture to show her what I meant, but I couldn't because of the stupid ropes that were tied around me.

"Georgie…"

It didn't feel like talking with her anymore, so I ignored her for the rest of the night.

**Xenia: Breakup?**

When you're tied up with nowhere to go, and you can't break free because they've bound you so tight you can't move, you start finding yourself praying for help. Some people pray to their parents, God, angels, etc. There was only one person that I prayed to find me: my angel.

When you don't pray for somebody else's angel; that is, when you pray for your own, it's more likely that your prayers will be answered. Mine was.

The moment I saw the two daggers stuck in the walls of the tent, I knew that I was saved. On the other hand, I also remembered how Rachel had said that only I'd escape, which was not exactly comforting. Though, it did mean that I'd be free, and alone with the one person in the world that I cared the most about. It's nice to be saved by someone who you know loves you forever and always.

"Xenia," he breathed, the moment that he walked through the flap of the door, a knife in his hand. "Thank Dawn you're alright."

"I'd be better if you let me out of these ropes," I said a little harshly.

"Probably," he agreed as he began cutting the ropes off of my hands.

"What took you so long?" I teased. "You're losing your grip, master assassin. I mean, really? Was it that hard to find me? And how did I get kidnapped in the first place? We were sleeping side-by-side, you know? There's something wrong with you, you know that?"

"I know," he muttered as the ropes fell off of my hands. "I'm sorry. Somebody must've put a sleeping spell on me or something."

"Or a keep your state of consciousness spell," Rachel the oracle piped in. "It's commonly used during battles to keep soldiers awake, no matter how tired they are. It was used in—" she broke off suddenly, as if something of great importance had suddenly occurred to her. "You have to go. Now."

"But I'm not done rescuing everyone," Bryce complained.

"Go," she repeated ominously. "Before the minions of darkness descend upon you. You must leave. Go before the dead one who walks comes. Only the daughter of Thor can stop him."

"What are you talking about?" Bryce demanded. "There is plenty of time to save everyone. They're causing a distraction out there and…" the words died in his throat as he realized that the distant sound of battle had stopped.

"Run," the oracle whispered one last time. As if suddenly getting the gravity of the situation that I still didn't fully understand, Bryce threw me over his shoulder and ran out of the tent. All around us, there were monsters moving in, and about a quarter of a mile away, there was an ominous figure in a black cloak gliding in our direction. He wasn't large and imposing, but there was something about him that made it clear that he wasn't a natural being. Maybe it was the fact that he was floating a full foot off of the ground, or that his eyes were the shade of red that appeared in the sun when ashes filled the sky. It could have been one or both of those. I didn't know for sure, and I didn't get any more time to ponder the thoughts, as Bryce had started to run away from all of the monsters.

It would have been odd for him, considering how strong he was, and considering how many monsters he could take down in a fight, except for the fact that the oracle had told him specifically to run. That and the fact that he probably wasn't stupid enough to try.

All of a sudden, he stopped in his tracks, and I fell off of his shoulder, onto the ground. From the dirt, I could see that the forest was only a few feet away.

"Bryce, what's going on?" I demanded, rising to my feet. "Come on! The forest is only a few feet away! What did you stop for?"

"I just realized that I left the oracle behind," he muttered. "That was stupid. Almost as stupid as deciding to go out with you."

"WHAT?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Did you just say what I thought you said?"

"Dawn and Night will never get along," he chuckled darkly. "You've been as bad as me, Xenia. You honestly believed that it would all work out. You're such an idealistic, optimistic chump."

The words stabbed holes in my heart.

"What… what are you saying?" I asked angrily. "Am I not good enough for you? What happened to all of those promises?"

"We need the daughter of the night to proceed with the next phase of the plan," he said, raising one of his knives to my face. "With the sacrifice of seven maidens, seven demigod maidens, we will release the Earth from her slumber, and release the Earth of the decay that humanity has wrought upon it. Nature will be avenged."

I liked nature as much as the next person (probably more) but I've never been one of the PETA type extremists. What Bryce was doing seemed to border along that level of insanity… except that he never seemed to like nature that much. And… what plan was he talking about?

"Bryce, you need your rest," I said as calmly as I could. "You've lost it a bit. We should get you back to camp, and then get some Tylenol…"

"No," he disagreed. "You're coming with me. We're going to get back into that tent, and we're going to tie you up." An evil smile crossed his face. "And then you'll get to see what's happened to your dear, dear friends."

"What… what have you done?" I gasped. "Bryce, what have you done?"

"We're bringing humanity to its knees, where it belongs," he laughed. "Humans are the only true taint of this Earth. Not money, not lust… humans."

"You've lost your mind."

"No, I've finally seen the truth. You can't fight evil except by fighting humanity. Kronos, Luke, monsters… none of them are evil. You demigods and your parents are what makes this world such a miserable place to live in. You and all of Western society."

"Bryce…" I didn't want to fight him. Not after all we'd gone through together.

"By the way," he said, running his hand through his hair. "I cheated on you."

**Ashley: Rapist!**

It's very easy to tell when a person is a rapist. At least, for a daughter of Artemis. We've got this really cool sixth sense type thing where we can look at a person and can tell if they're a rapist or not. It is a cool power... but it's really disturbing sometimes. I could walk down the street and see three guys glowing slightly.

Yep, most of them are guys. Most of them are ugly, too, but there are a few that are sooo hot. I mean, like the date rape kind of guys that come around every now and then... a lot. The sense really helps, and I can avoid them much more easily.

It was sort of hard to believe that I'd one day be going after a rapist, rather than avoiding one. But of course, that was because he was after one of my bestest friends, Rachel. That made it PERSONAL.

So I crept towards the tent that Haley had told me to go to, my bow in my hand. Now, I didn't want to hurt anyone, but if there was a rapist in there, he was gonna get it. Fo' sho'.

I heard some noise inside the tent, and one of them was a scream. My Artemis sense told me that that was probably from Rachel. That was a bad sign, so I hurried towards the tent a little faster. There were no guards outside the tent, and I recalled Bryce taking care of them earlier. Plus, rapists didn't want witnesses. The less the better, at least in court. If you're showing off, then that's something different entirely... and it's kinda weird.

I peeped into the tent, and my heart nearly stopped right there. I saw a guy with no shirt and no hair standing over Rachel and kicking her. I knew that Rachel was BUFF so that meant she must have either been tied up, or that he had worn her down a lot, and he was really strong. What happened next was sort of a blur.

I knew that I had no choice. It was either him, or bad things happen to Rachel. The spirit of the hunter took control of my body or something, and I raised my bow, notched with an arrow. The fact that Rachel was putting up a little resistance was nice, but it wasn't enough. Besides, if that guy could out-power Rachel, then throwing myself into the fray really wasn't that good of an idea. There was only one option.

The arrow flew straight... straight into the guy's lower spine. I heard a snap, and the guy collapsed, cursing. He screamed for help, and that he was being killed. I slipped inside and picked Rachel up. Her eyes were badly bruised, and I could see other parts of her body showing signs of the beating, but she looked alright otherwise. In the least, all of her clothes were still on.

"Ashley?" she sounded surprised.

"That's me," I said cheerfully. "Let's get out of here." I looked around, and I could see that people... or monsters were approaching from all sides.

"Um... do you have a plan?" Rachel sighed, standing up. "You _did_ come here to _rescue_ me. Ashley, please tell me you have a plan."

"I have a plan," I complied. "Er... I think that maybe somebody is going to pick us up..."

"Ashley..."

Just then, a monster ran through the flap of the tent. It was one of the dog-headed, seal-bodied telekines that I had seen in the fight a little while ago. Its large teeth were fully in view, as its mouth was wide open, ready to chomp somebody in half. Reacting out of instinct or something, Rachel punched it in the face. It gave a dog-like yelp and stumbled backwards, its flippers clutching at its face. Rachel quickly pulled the hunting knife from out of my Hunter's belt and slashed the telekine, reducing it to a pile of dust in a matter of seconds.

She glanced at me. "I think maybe it's time that I took over this rescue operation," she smiled. "C'mon Ashley, follow me." So, holding my hunting knife, she dashed out of the tent, me trying to keep up with her. She was a really fast runner though, and it was hard because I was in swim, not track or something. But I kept up, because if I didn't, there were plenty of monsters that would have been more than happy to devour me if I stumbled and fell.

Looking around as I ran, I saw a lot of different types of monsters. Some were like the telekines in the tent. Others were snake-tailed, but woman-bodied dracaena. There were some giants, some scorpion things, and the occasional one goat-legged demon cheerleader empousa. Nothing stopped Rachel. It was like she was on some sort of warpath. She hacked and slashed with my knife while running straight through the crowd. I… didn't do anything, to be honest. I just kept up.

"Rachel, stop," somebody in front of us commanded. I couldn't see who he was, but I recognized the voice from somewhere.

"What?" Rachel sounded shocked. "Now you're evil, too? What is wrong with this world?"

"People," the person announced as Rachel slowed down her mad dash. "People have poisoned the Earth's oceans, killed her trees, and ruined everything beautiful about it. They've even managed to destroy the god of the wild. Tell me honestly that that isn't evil."

"It's not evil," Rachel grunted, raising her knife in a fighting position. "There is something seriously wrong with you, Bryce. Now get out of my way before I have to ruin Xenia's day by stabbing you."

"Oh, don't worry about her," he laughed. "We're not an item anymore. Me and you, on the other hand… we've got potential."

"Oh, shut up!" Rachel yelled at him. "Freaking shut up! You are the most messed up person I've ever met in my entire life!"

"So… you won't join us, then?" Bryce asked innocently.

"No!"

"Then I'm afraid we're going to have to sacrifice you," he sighed. "Pity, too. You would have been a great addition to our army… and a cute one, too."

"ARGH!" Rachel punched him in the face, just like I expected her to. He stumbled backwards, his lip bleeding. Rachel moved in forward, slapped him in the face, and kneed him in the groin region. Then she grabbed him and tossed him aside.

"Ow…" Bryce moaned. "Get them…"

I looked around and saw the monsters closing in. "Um… Rachel…"

"Yeah, I know," she panted, raising her dagger (my dagger!) in ready. "It was nice fighting with you, Ashley. We had ha nice run, huh?"

"Yeah, it was nice," I sighed. "It was fun to fight alongside my little beaner."

Rachel smiled. "At least we can die happy."

"Not today, Rachel!" somebody in the forest yelled. I turned and saw Haley standing at the edge of the forest bow in hand. Her long blonde hair was braided into one long braid that hung over her right shoulder. She looked really pretty… and deadly. "Alright, on my mark. Three, two, one, mark!"

A volley of arrows erupted from the forest, and a good half of the monsters around us were caught with arrows, reducing them to dust. The rest flinched in fear and crouched back a little.

"RUN!" Haley yelled at us. "Run over here!"

We obeyed, running as fast as we could towards the forest while arrows continued pouring out of the forest and into the crowd of monsters. I didn't look back until we were safely in the forest, where about two dozen archers were standing and shooting arrows as quickly as possible.

"All of this to rescue us?" Rachel sounded surprised, and a little flattered.

"It was nothing," Haley said nonchalantly. "We were going to send more people, but Chiron thought that this was going to be enough. We take our rescue missions very seriously. And Artemis didn't want her daughter to be caught by a bunch of monsters, so she sent some help, too."

It was then that I began to recognize the few of the archers as some of Artemis' Hunters. "Hey, Ashley," Thalia said, stepping forward and embracing me in a hug. "It's nice to see you back in one piece. They didn't hurt you, did they? Lady Artemis would have been furious. She probably would send more Hunters to destroy them."

"No, I'm fine," I assured her. "But there are more prisoners in that tent. There's the oracle, Georgie… there are more people."

"Don't worry, we'll take care of that later," she assured me. "We just need to get out of here, now, before they overwhelm us with their sheer numbers."

"You look really pretty, by the way," I added as we stepped into the sleigh that Lady Artemis had let us borrow for the rescue mission.

"You really think so?" Thalia blushed. "Well, I guess that makes it hurt even more for the boys that I won't go out with." She laughed a little. "I like being a hunter. Even without the Kronos problem, it still feels so free to be a hunter. I feel like a wild spirit in the face of this ever-changing, ever more enclosing world that we love in. As technology closes in on everyone else, the hunters are enjoying a more simplistic, but rewarding and immortal life."

"There was something Bryce said as we were leaving," I said, slightly reminded of his disturbing state. We were getting in the sleigh, and it was taking off. "He said that humans were the problem and that the earth became what it is because of them."

"It is," Thalia said. "But we're not all bad. We can create. We were born to destroy, but some of us, like Annabeth, have channeled all of our energy into creating a better world, not destroying it. The hunters are like that. We don't destroy this earth. Sure, humanity hasn't been the best, but we've created so much. It isn't right to say that we're all that's wrong with this world. It's the darkness within men's hearts that's the problem. Surely, you've seen at least one example of that, right? The rapist aura? You probably see some of that once a day, at least."

"Yeah…" but I was lost in thought. What exactly was the evil that we were fighting?

**Glenn: I'm Awesome**

If there is any one word that describes me, it is "awesome." I mean, seriously, I'm buff, sorta smart, and I have one hot body. That doesn't mean other people are ugly, I'm just better than all of them. I was a swim star and all of the ladies loved me. So, naturally, I had to save them whenever they got into harms way. Even the ones I didn't like too much I had to save. It was the burden of being the perfect man. I had rad arms, sexy abs, and I got the ladies easy. It's a burden to be perfect... and awesome... you have to use it... and for so many different people. You can't let any of them down, you know? It was helpful being the son of Poseidon, too. It helped me swim fast, and all of that power... nothing like power to attract the ladies. And there's nothing hippy girls like more than saving the Earth, and I was doing just that. It didn't really matter if humans were all wiped out. I'd be fine... with all of my hippy friends of course.

So that's me. And I happened to see two damsels in distress in the middle of camp. What better way to save them than by stopping all of the monsters and then bringing them each into my tent for some alone time? Nothing, which is exactly what I thought. So I walked smoothly into the crowd of monsters and help up my hands.

"You should all stop," I said smoothly, and all of the monsters backed away from my sheer awesomeness. None of them even bothered to snarl. I was too awesome for that. "These two are coming with me."

I turned and saw two old friends, Xenia and Lexi. I'd never been with either of them before, so it was probably a good thing that I had found them here.

"Lexi, Xenia," I called over to them. "Come here. It's all good. They won't hurt you. Trust me. We're friends, right, guys?"

Uncertainly, Lexi pulled Xenia towards me, and the monsters parted to make way for them. They seemed to be staring at Lexi, which was something that I was doing too. It was hard not to get lost in her dirty pillows... there are other things to call them, but I'm awesome, and awesome people don't stoop to that level.

The first thing that I did was grab Lexi and kiss her. Of course she wanted it, I mean, she's just another desperate girl, and I'm the awesomest guy on the planet. Why wouldn't she want it? But instead of enjoying it like a sane girl would have, she pulled back, kicked me downstairs, and slapped me so hard that I fell to the ground. It hurt... a lot...


	8. Chapter 8

**Oh, the plot thickens. This is fun. Oh, and please read and review… and enjoy, of course!**

**I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, or any affiliated characters etc.**

**CHAPTER 8**

**Haley: Ambush**

The monsters were moving their camp to another location, just as Michael had predicted. Their forces were moving easily in a line formation. There were just tons and tons of monsters in a line that stretched on for nearly a mile. There were old-fashioned wagons from back in the pioneering days, along with hundreds of marching monsters. Under normal circumstances, this would have been rather frightening. However, these weren't normal circumstances. We had a few dozen of our best archers hidden out in the forests surrounding the monsters' path. We also had a few artillery batteries pointed straight at them from the surrounding hillsides. If that wasn't enough, we also had Ares cabin all lined up to prevent their further advancement, and Hermes cabin in the rear to prevent their retreat. We also had a few big three demigods scattered everywhere among our troops as points of leadership.

As for me, I was stuck in the forests with the rest of the Apollo cabin. We were the support units that would first strike down the wagon pullers, then continue to provide support with an endless flurry of arrows. Of course, if anybody went down in the heat of the fight, we were there for that, too. It was a pretty easy job, and one that entitled very little risk. Besides, they weren't even supposed to know that we were waiting for them. And that was a very reassuring thought.

The waiting was the hard part. We sat silently in the depths of the forests until we heard the wheels of their wagons approaching us. Even louder than the wagons was the grunting of the giants pulling them, and the yipping of telekines. That bothered me a bit. Telekines were part dog, and if that was true, then they'd likely have the smell of a dog, and they'd be able to pick up our scent… and have the ability to relay that information to their friends.

"I smell something," a telekine snarled, validating my fears.

"What is it?" a Laistrygonian asked, and the entire caravan stopped.

"Open fire," the voice of Michael said over my earpiece. Immediately, the entire cabin rose up with bows drawn and aimed for targets in the crowd. We managed to strike nearly a hundred monsters down before they finally realized what was going on. From both sides of the highway, arrows were sailing smoothly towards their targets. From the hills, artillery fire came, setting fire to the front and back wagons. From the right corner of my eye, I saw the Ares cabin climbing out of the forest and locking in formation to engage the enemy. Clarisse was at the head, her spear in hand, and looking as scary as usual. She had grown even more muscular since the attack on the camp. She had trained twice as hard, and grown a little taller somehow. I was a little jealous, due to my short stature, but at least I was stealthy. Clarisse was just imposing… and rightfully so. Her spear meant death by stabbing to any monster stupid enough to get in her way, and with her temper the way it was, not many mortals would be able to stand up to her, either.

"FOR ARES!" she yelled the battle cry of the Ares cabin. It was crude, yet effective. The entire cabin surged forward like a tsunami, and the wall of monsters that had formed to face them was trampled over in an instant. From the back, I could see the Hermes cabin advancing as well, though not with the battle-readiness of the Ares cabin. Hermes kids were generally stealthier in their battle approach, their father being the god of thieves. These kids were armed with swords, shields, and crossbows. They weren't as scary as Ares cabin, but you had to give props to the crossbows. Those were deadly weapons when semi-automatic.

The Athena cabin was spread out among the campers. A few of them had set up a task force to rescue the remaining prisoners from the clutches of the enemy… Lexi had somehow found herself kidnapped, and Xenia hadn't successfully escaped. Bryce was also missing, and that was disturbing. We had lost a lot of campers to unknown causes… and some to just plain stupid causes. Seriously, how did Lexi get kidnapped? That was one of the stupidest things ever. Sure, she wore revealing clothing, but that isn't exactly effective when it comes to monsters. Then a thought struck me. What if a mortal or a demigod had kidnapped her? What if there were traitors in the camp? The thought was nowhere near pleasant, and I had to keep shooting to keep my thoughts away from the dark side.

**Kristy: Another Failed Rescue**

I was leading the rescue team bound for the fourth wagon from the rear… or the third. I didn't know how to put it, because technically, the last one had been obliterated. But that's technically, so it doesn't count. The point is, I was leading the rescue, and things were going just fine. There were tons of monsters in front that I had no problem getting rid of by opening a fissure in the ground, and the occasional monster attacking from the side was taken down by Brooke with her semi-automatic crossbow.

But there were also mortal guards, and that was very disturbing. I didn't recognize any of them, except one. That one was very important to me.

"Don?" I gasped as I recognized his face guarding the entrance to the prisoners' wagon. "Is that… what are you doing here?" I couldn't believe that it was him. I thought he had disappeared or gotten lost or something. Here was my boyfriend, not dead.

"Kristy," he smiled crookedly. "Join us. You know you want to. When we rid the Earth of its plague, we can be together forever."

"Don…" I was sorely tempted to. This guy was HOT. I mean, I'm not the type to check out every single guy to walk by, but whoa, this guy… and he had been mine, at one point. I had lost him somewhere down the line when he mysteriously disappeared. "I… I don't think I can do that. I'd like to, but…"

"Then don't," he snapped, which was very unlike him. "We don't need you, Kristy. _I_ don't need you. You're weak, anyway. You're not worth anything except to work in the kitchens of the new regime… if you manage to survive."

"What are you saying?" the words had hit me like arrows through the heart. "What… I don't…"

"I. Don't. Need. You," he pronounced each word fully and slowly, as if I was stupid. I could feel bubbles of rage and indignation coming from that deep pit inside of my head. This guy was a guy I had trusted my heart to completely. He had been my crying shoulder when I needed one, and had helped me through so much. Here he was telling me that he didn't need me, and that I was weak and insignificant.

I'm not normally an angry person. Sure, I may hit Daniel and Steven now and then for being annoying, but full blown rage is not one of my strong points, normally. When people think "Kristy" they don't think a girl about to cut your head off and absorb your soul into her sword. At that moment in time, everything anybody thought about "Kristy" would have been entirely incorrect. I was ready to stab that guy and absorb his soul to feed my Disney-stickered Stygian iron sword. (I like putting Disney stickers on my sword, is that a crime?)

I stepped forward and pulled out my sword. I probably had a mad gleam in my eyes that made me look like some sort of psychopath killer. Well, I felt like a maniac, at the very least. I was going through rage over a broken heart. Every dream I had had about him seemed null and void. Every nice thing that I had ever thought about him was absolute lie. I only felt that he was the evilest, vilest, most disgusting piece of crap that I had ever had the misfortune to encounter in the entirety of my life. To be honest, I was ready to send him off to Tartarus and be done with it all… and it was possible as the daughter of Hades.

"Oh, is little Kristy mad?" he teased in a way that was nothing like the boy I had fallen in love with. He just sounded infuriating.

"No," I said through clenched teeth. "'Little Kristy' is totally pissed. You see, 'little Kristy' doesn't like jerk faces like you. She doesn't like liars like you. She doesn't like people who break their promises like you. Guess what, Don? She doesn't like you at all. And you know what? 'Little Kristy' has enough power in her to send you to Tartarus for a few centuries. Now how does that sound?"

"Like a joke," he scoffed, raising his sword. "What could _you_ possibly do? You're a total weakling, Kristy. If I hadn't been there for you, you probably wouldn't even be alive right now. And don't even get me started on your brother. You're just as stupid as he is."

That was the last straw. Nobody makes fun of my little brother like that. He has a mental handicap, and it isn't his fault. Nobody can stop things like that from happening. But that doesn't mean they have to make fun of it. Calvin had always wanted to meet my little brother, and was always nice about it. He defended him all the time as if he was his older brother. He never got the chance, and that got my blood boiling even more. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair to have him die and not meet him, while this jerk was mocking my little brother. Calvin would have showed him, even if he had almost no muscle on his body. In his place, I was going to have to do something like a good big sister.

_Go get him, Kristy._ Calvin's disembodied voice in my head encouraged me. _Nobody makes fun of your little brother like that. If I was there, I'd shoot a neurotoxin at him that slowly drove him insane, but I'm not… so just beat the crud out of him. Seriously, he deserves it._ That was weird, but I didn't have time to dwell on that fact, because I was rushing forward with my sword drawn. Don smile, and struck a defensive pose. I stopped short of him and stabbed my sword into the ground. His grin widened stupidly.

"I knew you could never hurt me," he laughed. "You don't even have the strength to lift your own sword. How pathetic are you?"

"Shut it," I muttered as a large crack opened in the ground and headed towards him. "Warriors of the dead, serve me." Immediately, a dozen armed skeletons clawed their way out of the ground. A few skeletal arms popped out of the ground and grabbed his legs, preventing him from moving out of place at all.

"Get off of me," he scowled, trying to shake his feet free of the hands. "GET OFF!" He tried slashing the hands, but a sword came out of the ground and blocked his blow. "What the hell?"

"No, Hades," I corrected, marching forward, flanked by skeletons. "Take care of him," I told the skeletons. "And make it painful." I was acting totally out of character. I usually didn't take pleasure in torturing people, even those who mistreat me. But somewhere deep inside of me, a feral rage purred with satisfaction. That had showed him… but had also made me look like some sort of monster.

"Don't worry about it," Brooke said from a little behind me, hefting her crossbow among the chaos. "They all go and break your heart sometime. It is better that you channel that anger on them, rather than yourself. And it's a whole lot better than being miserable, too. Trust me."

For a daughter of Athena, she knew a lot about love. She was the one who used pictures of ex-boyfriends for target practice; everyone knew that. I also knew that I could trust her. She knew what she was talking about.

"I do, don't worry," I assured her. "But maybe this is taking things a little too far… I mean… torture? That just isn't right."

"We'll see about what's right when he starts stalking you," she muttered.

"Stalking?" I was officially freaked out.

"Trust me," she sighed. "I'd know from experience."

"Experience?" I was skeptical.

"Jason," she muttered. "Roger, Handel... the list goes on."

I decided to take her word for it. "So we're gonna rescue the prisoners now?"

She nodded curtly. "I suppose we must." She advanced, her crossbow in the front. Her blonde hair was in a ponytail in her cap, and it swished slightly from side to side as she walked nearer and nearer to the prisoners' carriage. I followed quickly behind her, and soon had my back pressed to the carriage, along with her. She put her finger to her lips and quietly reached for the lock, a bobby pin in her hand.

I heard a click, and I realized that the lock had been magically opened... by a magic bobby pin. I had to get one of those. I made a note to ask her for one later.

Quietly, she unlatched the lock and let the door swing forward by itself. Nothing stirred inside, and Brooke motioned for Daniel to come closer. He did, and as he approached, I could see his X-ray goggles on his head, and a stupid grin plastered all over his face. When he reached the carriage, he put the visor down, and peered at inside the carriage.

"What the hell?" he made each word sound like its own sentence. "There isn't anyone in there."

"What?" I demanded, breaking the quiet that Brooke had wanted to instill upon us. I wrenched the door open, and found the carriage devoid of everything, except for a small note left on the base of the carriage, on top of the floorboards.

I grabbed it and hopped out, frowning. It was neatly printed with words that seemed almost straight out of Steve's notebook, it was so neat.

"Nice try," I read the note aloud. "That's it?"

"That can't be it..." Brooke sounded disappointed. "I mean, we came here to rescue them. We watched them all of the way, including when they put them in. They should be in there."

Suddenly, an arrow smacked into the wood of the carriage, causing all of us to jump backwards in surprise. Attached to the arrow was another letter, neatly rolled up and tied with a smooth, elegant green ribbon.

"They're watching us," Brooke said grimly, striking a shooting position and aiming at various spots in our vicinity and in the surrounding hillsides. "How could they have known what we were going to do. Our scouts..." She paled. "Unless our scouts are on their side..." I saw her fist clench tightly on her crossbow. "Harold..."

"Counterattack!" somebody in the distance yelled. "We're under attack!"

**Rachel: Counterattack**

There was something seriously wrong with our plans. They all seemed to fall short of their goals. First, failed rescue. Then another failed rescue. Then somehow all of the prisoners aren't where they're supposed to be. After that, you get the enemy counterattacking you, even though you were sure that there were no enemies remotely in the area after a few aerial scans, a few satellite sweeps, and a few ground force recon missions.

It was nice to have more than just my fists in a fight. Sure, the armor was kind of heavy, but I was used to that. The sword was well balance, but the shield was mostly an arm ache. I had tossed it aside after trying to use it in battle. The news of the counterattack had led me to pick it up again. A sword alone for offense is a fine option... for defense, you need a shield.

My squad took up a defensive position near one of the central wagons. We had Ashley, Kelly and I guarding one side, Haley and some other kid guarding another side, and the last side was guarded by Thalia and two of the hunters. We had a nice wagon triangle thing going on, but the news was that there were several hundreds of monsters pouring in our direction. The highway wasn't that full, but I had the feeling that the mortals would begin noticing if monsters and demigods started waging a full scale battle. It might have been just me, but the battle seemed to be not part of the plan.

"It's like every time that I do something with you people, we end up in some sort of mess or another," I sighed. "Really, you guys need to work on your strategies or something."

"Our strategies are fine," Thalia said curtly. "There just seems to be something else going on. It's like every summer some new disaster threatens to destroy all that we've worked for. You just happened to walk in on it. Besides, you're going to have to get used to it. Being a demigod isn't easy. And you already know, so there isn't any turning back. If you want to survive, you're going to have to get used to it."

"Gee, thanks," I said sarcastically. I glanced over towards the woods, now devoid of all of our troops. The message had been sent out that enemy reinforcements were coming, and we all had gone to the center of the road to defend ourselves. Chiron assured us that reinforcements were on their way... in half an hour. The thought wasn't exactly reassuring, considering that it was very possible that we would all be dead by the time that reinforcements arrived.

"The Friends of Nature?" I heard somebody say in disgust. "What is this?"

"Are you kidding? That's what we're fighting? The Friends of Nature? They've got monsters? What on Earth is going on here?"

"Let's see... stop attacking the earth... go die..." somebody else muttered. "Typical tree hugger stuff... blah blah blah... wait, what? Awaken the Earth from her slumber? That's bad."

"You mean like the goddess of the Earth? Can they even do that?"

"I don't know, but I don't really want to find out, either."

My mind flashed back to what Bryce had said… about sacrificing me. It had seemed like simply a cruel comment at the time, but was that really a possibility?

"Incoming!" somebody warned, snapping me out of my thoughts. Arrows flew from the center into the woods, where dozens of different monsters were coming out. I just waited, not having a bow. The ground between us and the monsters closed yards at time. They leaped, ran, slithered, and crawled. I lowered my shield, and pointed my sword straight at the enemy. And I waited. Closer. Closer. Closer. Jab!

The hellhound that was bounding for me slowly turned into black smoke from where it impaled itself on my sword. But that was only the beginning. I soon found myself blocking actual swords and spears from dracanae and giants. I dodged a few scorpion needles, too. As to where those were coming from, I was almost clueless until the giant scorpions started scuttling towards our modest defense post.

"Fire!" cannons in the hills erupted, and artillery fire rained down upon the entire area. It was risky, considering we were in the middle of the storm, but I trusted the Hephaestus kids to not get us all killed. They were kind of good at using artillery, being the sons of the god of fire.

Things were actually going fine until giant spiders started appearing from the forests. I didn't know much about them, but somehow, they were causing some sort of panic among our ranks, especially among the children of Athena. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the right side of our battle line beginning to waver.

"Do you guys see that?" I asked my surrounding companions. "What's going on with those giant spiders?"

"It's because Athena was the goddess who created spiders," Thalia explained as she pulled out her hunting knives. "The descendents of that first spider always try to exact vengeance for their all mother. Killing the descendents of Athena is usually a major part of plans like that."

"I see…"

But that was the most that I could get out of her, as our conversation was rudely interrupted by a… I suppose you could call it a scream, but it was more than that. It was the sound of pure fear. I had never heard it before, but it made me want to run away… unfortunately, I did just that. I threw down my sword and shield and ran for all that I was worth.

**Kelly: I Burn Down a Few Wagons… and the Forest**

A lot of things kind of just happen on accident around me. Most of those things involved fire in one form or another. And a lot of the time, it involved the fire burning down major stretches of area that really aren't supposed to be burned… but sometimes things that aren't supposed to happen, do happen. The burned objects just had to get used to it. Not everything had it as good as they did before they got burned to a crisp. Of course, being burned wasn't exactly a good thing, either, but… that's life. You get burned to the ground, and sometimes you can't get back up. Oh well. But sometimes, the fire really gets out of hand, and really bad things happen. The battle on the road between the forests was kind of really like that.

You see, I was fighting, and I happened to have my lighter on me (fire is comforting, okay?) I had left all of my Hephaestus brothers and sisters to fire artillery so I could be in the thick of the fight with Ashley and Rachel. Turns out, that wasn't the best of ideas. Not by a long shot. But at least I had the fire. I managed to set my sword on fire, and it acted like a flaming… sword. It worked really well, because monsters don't like fire at all, and humans love it because it was the first gift from Prometheus.

Well, I love fire because it burns, not because some dude gave it to mankind a couple thousand years ago. It's warm and it crackles, lighting up the darkness… and lighting up the lightness if you need it to. It was the most amazing substance on the face of this Earth.

But I'm getting off track, here. I was wielding my flaming sword and fighting really well because of it. I sizzled scorpions, burning giants, and ruined the hair of empousa. The maniacal laughter that I kept hearing… was it mine? I didn't know, but I heard a lot of maniacal laughter coming from somewhere each time something burned.

Then, of course, the bad things started happening. The giant spiders came, and then the really creepy screaming noise that made me run for my life in a random direction. Unfortunately, that panic caused me to throw my flaming sword onto one of the wooden wagons, which immediately began to burn like a candle… or… or… gasoline soaked socks or something. The point is that they were on fire.

That giant fire caused the monsters to back off, even though all of the demigods were panicking and running every which way, the monsters weren't taking advantage of their opportunity because of the fire that I had accidentally started. So I guess it was a good thing that I set my sword on fire. People sometimes yelled at me to stop being such a pyromaniac, but what did they have to say now? Fire is a good thing.

**Thalia: Crazy**

It was bad enough that I couldn't find Annabeth, but the panic coursing through the air was even worse, if that was even possible. Annabeth was my little sister, and she was missing. And the panic could only mean one thing… it seemed impossible, unlikely, but in some twisted sort of way, I suppose it had to make sense. I just didn't want to believe that one of my best friends could possibly betray us all. But the panic… it had to be him. Through the panic, I rushed to find him. He had to be here somewhere. My heart was beating like a drum in Chop Suey, and my palms were as sweaty as can be. I didn't want to believe it was true. It couldn't be him. There was no way that he could be behind all of this.

Then I saw him. He had grown some during his disappearance from the camp on his quest from Pan to protect nature. His curly reddish hair had grown even longer, as had his horns. He no longer wore his Rasta cap over his head to hide his horns, and no fake shoes either. He had an almost insane look in his eyes, and his reed pipes were playing some sort of Irish jig.

"Grover!" I screamed as the panic began to wear off. "Grover!"

His ears twitched, and he turned in my direction. His eyes widened slightly. I could see his lips opening to accommodate my name. Before I could do anything about it, the butt of a giant's spear smacked me across the cheek and sent me sprawling to the ground.

I blinked a few times and looked up. The spear's head was coming down on me fast, and I reacted by grabbing the shaft of the spear before it reached me, and sending a wave of electrical energy straight up it and into the monster's arms. It was immediately fried by my father's lightning, and jolted backwards, slamming into a flaming wagon, causing the entire thing to flip over, and into the forest.

"NO!" was the first word I had heard Grover say in the past year. He had mysteriously vanished a few months after the Battle for Manhattan. We all assumed that he just wanted to save the Earth and didn't want to say good-bye because he was going somewhere very far away for a very long time. Juniper didn't take that too well, and had cried for days afterwards. And here he was, betraying everything and everyone that he had once stood for… or had stood up for him.

Grover turned to some of the monsters that flanked him. "Put out the fire," he commanded. "And be quick about it. I don't want this place to burn as well. We can't afford to lose anymore of the surface nature."

The monsters bowed and headed to find some water or something to put out the fire. Percy would have taken care of it no problem. He probably would have just summoned some water from a nearby lake and caused the whole thing to stop, but he was busy fighting monsters or something of that nature.

"Grover?" Percy appeared next to me and gaped at his goat best friend. "Grover… I don't understand. What… WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" His face was contorted in a rage that I had never seen him use against Grover before. Of course, Grover had never done anything like this before, either, so I guess it was normal.

Grover's calm, yet somewhat maniac, resolve seemed to become a little loose, and he looked a little worried, maybe a little ashamed of what he was doing. But that look disappeared in an instant, and I wondered if I had simply imagined it.

"I'm saving the Earth, Percy," he said a little dreamily. "I won't let humanity destroy her anymore than it already has. I'm keeping my final promise to Pan. If you won't let me keep that promise, than… than you're just as bad as everything that you once fought against."

"That _we_ once fought for," I correct. "What happened to you, Grover? You used to be a nice goat. Sure, maybe you were a little annoying, but at least you weren't evil. And you weren't that bad looking either. You were one of the best people ever. And now you're killing demigods and causing destruction? That isn't evil?"

"The ends justify the means," he affirmed, seemingly to himself, as if he wasn't quite sure that he believed in that statement or not. "If I wipe out humanity but manage to save the Earth, then I will have succeeded in my purpose in life. Pan asked me to save the wild places, so that's what I'm doing. I'm preserving nature, Thalia. I'm sorry if you can't understand that, but it's something that I have to do. It's called 'keeping a promise,' Thalia."

"Don't you go there," I warned, pulling out my familiar spear. "I did the best I could. That's what I promised to do."

"You promised to get her there safely," Grover corrected. "And you didn't. Only we knew that she existed. We had seen her for what she was, but never told anybody when you failed to bring her to camp with Annabeth and Luke. You left her when it seemed the she and Luke were getting along a little too well for your tastes. You could never take the fact that Luke liked some people better than you. It just happened to be her. So you got rid of her."

"Shut up!" I screamed. "That isn't true! I… I did my best to get her back. But she ran off when we were getting close to camp. It isn't my fault that she isn't here anymore… I don't… I don't even know where she is, or if she's still alive." The guilt was showing, and I knew it. I had left her… she had been so pretty, and so powerful. She and Luke got along really well, and I had a feeling that they were planning on being more than just friends when they got to camp, where it was actually safe enough to have relationships like that. For me, it had been just too much to bear. I had lost everything, I couldn't lose Luke, too. Not to her.

I convinced her that it would be safer if she left the group, and she seemed happy to oblige. After all, she didn't want to go to camp. Being the grand-daughter of Zeus and Poseidon, she was among the most powerful demigods ever born. She would only be used as a weapon by the gods, and she didn't want that. Sure, the plan benefited the world, and her… but it was mostly for me. Luke… I couldn't let her take Luke, yet he had gone over to the dark side without her around. I had pushed her away, and he had turned evil after I died. Then he had died… he had sacrificed his self to send Kronos back to Tartarus, but only after releasing him and becoming his human puppet, and nearly causing the end of the gods, of course.

"She's alive," Grover said simply, an evil smile on his face. "She's alive and doing well, actually. She's just had a daughter, who she left to some of your campers to take care of. They did a good job caring for her, and she's impressed. She's willing to not kill all of you. But most of you will probably die."

"She's alive?" I didn't hear much of the rest, but that sentence stood out, playing dozens of scenarios in my head. "I thought she died out there on her own… but she's alive?"

"Yes, I am," the voice of a young woman said from behind me.

"Sasha?" I breathed, turning around.


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.**

**CHAPTER 9**

**Kira: No Way**

I made my way through the crowd, mercilessly letting loose with the sword that Dad had given to me before I left for my first quest. My arms and thoughts were blurs as I battled my way through the monsters and the fire.

I lopped off a few arms here, chopped a few hands there, slashed some legs somewhere else, and just all around danced through the crowd of enemies. There was something very important going on, and I intended to find out just what it was. That gut feeling was telling me that I would find someone very important very soon. I had to admit, it was a lot sooner than I had expected. It was a lot sooner than I thought that I would ever see her again. I had thought I would see her when I died… but there she was.

Standing on a hillside, and talking to Thalia, was Sasha. She had been like a sister to me for a few years. She had helped me while I was in the orphanage, and had made sure that I had enough to eat. Seeing her again was… just bizarre. I thought that she had died the night that she disappeared. I had gone out looking for monsters to kill to avenge her. And here she was.

"Sasha!" I yelled. "SASHA!" She turned around, and her eyes met mine. I saw a faint flicker of recognition crossing her face. Her eyes widened, and her lips twitched briefly into a smile. Then they stopped, and she was cold again.

"Kira," she muttered, barely loud enough for me to hear over the sounds of the ensuing battle. "What are you doing here? What happened to your home in London?"

"I came here with… my boyfriend," the pain of his loss panged guiltily in my heart. It was partly my fault that he had died. Had I not pushed him to come back, then maybe he would still be alive, even if he had a little guilt, he'd still be alive. Now, he was dead.

"No way," she sounded as if I was joking. It sounded like old times, when she would talk about boys with me, and it reminded me of when things were normal, and we weren't trying to kill each other. "Do tell. Everything. Spill, girlfriend."

"I… I can't," I spluttered. "He's not… exactly…"

"Alive?" he seemed to know exactly what I was going to say before I said it. When I looked shocked, she smiled a different smile. It wasn't her sweet older sister smile. It was a smile of pure malice. "Oh, Kira, Kira, Kira. He's not dead. He's just… reborn, you could say."

"What?" I couldn't believe my ears. Not for a second. I had seen him die. I had mourned his loss properly. There was no way that he was back as a ghost to haunt me or something."

"Kira…" then he stepped out of Sasha's shadow. He wore a dark gray or black cloak, his bow in his hand. He still looked like the angel that I had met in London a few days back. Except he was all in black… like an angel of death. But was he my angel of death? "It's nice to see you again. How are you?"

"K-K-Kien?" I was in shock. "But… but you're dead!"

He chuckled darkly. "Yes, yes I was. But I'm fine now, no thanks to you, of course." The words cut through my heart like a knife through butter. "It was all thanks to Sasha that I made it out of that sea alive. Sure, Kronos had stabbed me with his scythe, but while I was drifting through the ocean, half-alive, Sasha found me and rescued me. And now… now we're together."

"No," I whimpered. "No, that can't be… you said…"

"Forever and always?" he smiled a smile entirely out of character. "I lied." He seemed to be enjoying my pain, something that he would never have done before. It was as if dying and coming back had changed everything about him… except his appearance. "And you believed me. Silly girl. Did you ever wonder why I appeared at your doorstep? I was at the edge of heartbreak… or had been. I found you, and we got together well enough. In my foolish state of mind, I actually believed that I loved you. I should have known that I was only waiting for the right person, and she looked a lot like you. I'm sorry to give you the bad news, but I've moved on. Maybe you should, too."

"Who?" I demanded, traces of my family's trademark rage in my voice. "Who is so much better than me that you threw me aside like a rag doll for her? And you didn't even bother telling me about this? Who is she?"

He smiled wickedly. "You're looking at her."

I stared at him uncomprehendingly. "You mean… you mean…" I didn't get it until I glanced to his left and saw Sasha again. I mean, really saw Sasha again. She had beautiful platinum blonde hair in a ponytail over her left shoulder. Her eyes were a deep, dark blue. She looked a little like me, only ten times as pretty… and ten times as evil. "Sasha?"  
"At last you understand," he chuckled. "Of course, it was Sasha. Beautiful, smart, funny, and of course, she saved my life, something that you hadn't been doing a very good job of, Kira. She's taken much better care of me than you did."

"How… how could you?" I spluttered. There wasn't much more to say. I could barely manage anything with my heart coming apart the way it was. I was falling apart, and yet I still loved him. It was insane. I couldn't do this. How can someone break your heart, and you can still love them with all of the little, tiny pieces?

"It was easy," he said. "It started with holding hands now and then. Then a kiss, slow and passionate. It was sort of like this," without much warning, he pulled Sasha into his arms and kissed her just the way that he had described. It was nothing like us. Not by a long shot. It seemed like he had a lot of practice since then. He pulled away, smiling. "Then things just carried on from there, Kira. I hope you'll understand. It's nothing personal; Sasha is just better."

"Oh, really?" I demanded, hefting my sword. "I'll show you who's better. Come here and let me lop your head off, you backstabbing, heartbreaking, bastard."

"That's a new one," he chuckled. "I never thought I would hear that come out of your mouth, dear. You're just full of surprises, aren't you? Just none that would have kept me around you for very long, though, you whore."

"Don't call me that," I tightened the grip on my sword. "I can't believe I even told you that. I thought what we had was special. I thought that I could trust you. I told you all of that because I didn't want to hide anything from you. I wanted to know that you loved me for everything that I was, and that you could accept that. I… I didn't think that you would turn on me like this, not after all of that. Not after Loki."

"But I did," he said lightly. "And therein lies your problem. You trust too easily, Kira. Much, much too easily. You knew me for a week, kissed me, and when I died, you just accepted that I was gone. You didn't even try to find me. I feel a little unloved. Or I felt unloved until Sasha found me."  
"Shut up," I muttered. "Shut up and go back to whatever godforsaken hole that you came from." The rage wouldn't last long. After the anger, always came the tears. I couldn't let him see what he'd done to me. Not him. Not ever again. I turned around, but some sort of invisible force kept me from walking away. "Let go of me."

"Come now, let's talk about this," he said with false sweetness. "We used to be so close Kira. I don't know what happened, but that doesn't mean we can't still be friends, hm? Just because we're not lovers, doesn't mean that we can never talk to each other again. It would be a shame to throw away all of those memories, wouldn't it?"

"No it wouldn't," an arrow whizzed past me and straight at his face. He caught it an inch from the middle of his forehead with two fingers.

"It's nice to see you, too, Brooke," he said, snapping the arrow in half and flicking it aside as if it were some sort of insect that he had just killed. "You know, I never even imagined that you would someday be using my head for target practice. I always imagined it would be Michael, or someone like that. I suppose I should feel flattered, but really, I'm sorry but I don't feel that way about you... I never have, to be quite honest. I apologize if I... have caught you off guard or hurt your feelings in any way, but I am taken."

"Oh, shut it!" she yelled. "I've had enough of you backstabbing boys nowadays. What is with you people? It's like today is 'Betray your Girlfriend Week' or something! First Bryce, then Don, now you? Don't you ever think about what happens to us? Look at what happened to Xenia and Kristy? Just look at what you're doing to Kira!"

"I…" I could see a trace of the familiar Kien behind all of that coldness. I saw a flicker in his eyes. It was a flicker of remembrance. That concerned look he had whenever I was hurt flashed in his eyes for a moment. His eyes were locked on mine when that flicker came, so I saw it as clear as day. In that moment, I knew that he wasn't totally lost. Then he blinked and that familiar look was gone. "I did think about that. And it was for the best. We all need to deal with true heartbreak sometime. Now is a good time as any, isn't it, guys?"

"Yes," Bryce and Don stepped out from behind Kien. Bryce leaned on Kien's much smaller shoulder. "They certainly deserved that. They needed to grow up."

"She tried to kill me," Don sighed happily. "She's growing up so fast. It seemed like just yesterday… well, it was just yesterday when it seemed like she wouldn't harm a fly. And today, she sent skeletons to kill me! See how good this is for her? We're taking her from frail, shy young girl, and turning her into what she was meant to be. You should be proud of our accomplishments. But… you'll probably only be able to appreciate them a long time from now, when you finally use the skills that we have taught you in this brief period in time... of course, seeing as you'll all be exterminated soon, it doesn't really matter too much."

"Bryce?" I heard a surprised, and slightly anguished voice ask.

He laughed. "Xenia, just as persistent and stupid as ever."

**Xenia: Not Kidding**

He was alive. There was no way on the face of this Earth that he was still alive. I had seen him burn. You don't see that with your own eyes and have it thrown in your face very often. It might have been because I was horrified, or that I felt betrayed, or that I felt guilty for not saving him, but that moment burning in my memory like a shooting star in the night sky. I would have saved him. I knew that I would have... but I hadn't. But he was still alive.

Even being alive, he was insulting me as much as my siblings used to... and as much as pretty much everyone else used to. But this was Bryce. He was the center of my entire universe, the one person who I've ever trusted to keep my heart safe. Here he was, purposefully tearing me apart. It was as if the entire world was coming apart at the seems... or at least the seems of my world. There was only one plausible explanation for all of this: none of it was really happening. That really wasn't really Bryce at all. It had been a evil replacement of some sort. That's why he wouldn't die. That's why he was so different. And with that thought, I used one of the corniest, and most notorious of movie lines.

"Who are you and what have you done with Bryce?" I demanded, my staff drawn and extended to full length. It wasn't sharp, but that didn't mean it couldn't hurt.

"Oh, silly Xenia," the evil Bryce chuckled. "I am Bryce. I haven't done anything to him. I have always been this way, just behind your back. Did you really think that I could love a girl like you? I told you, Dawn and Night were not meant to be. You should really get used to that thought now, because it isn't ever going to change. I'm not taking you back, especially not after you left me to burn in that tent. I'm not stupid. You, on the other hand, are very stupid. You keep coming back for more when there isn't anything to return to. You need to learn to accept it and just move on with your life."

"I won't," I snarled through clenched teeth. "Not until you give me back the Bryce that I know and loved."

"The pathetic, weak, stupid one?" Bryce asked. He tapped his finger on his chin. "I'm sorry, but that Bryce is gone. Me? I'm still Bryce, but I'm just a better model."

"No you're not," I contradicted. "The old Bryce was five times the man that you are!"

"I highly doubt that," he chuckled. "My manhood is far beyond that of lesser beings like that. After joining the Friends of Nature, I have become more than I was before. I have seen the light and gained powers unreachable before joining." I could see the love of power in his eyes. There were practically balls of fire burning in his sockets. I refused to believe that this was the same Bryce. Bryce loved me, not power.

Then I noticed someone who was supposed to be dead. One of my best friends was back from the grave, but some other look dominated his eyes. It wasn't lust for power... it was lust, plain and simple. I noticed that he stood next to a blonde, and his hand was around her waist. Something was wrong with him, too. There was no way that Kien would dare to do something like that, no matter how close he was to somebody.

"How about you, Kien?" I asked. "Are you a better model of what you were before?"

"Nope," he chirped cheerfully. "I've only noticed the finer things in life, not like what I used to see. Physically I'm almost the same. Sure, I'm a little stronger, a little faster, and a little better looking, but the change is mostly in my head."

"I can sure see that," I snorted. "You've become the snob that you never imagined that you could ever be. Congratulations, Kien, you're a jerk. How does it feel?"

"It feels better than being a loser, I'll give you that," he retorted. "I can actually have a decent girlfriend," I saw Kira tense. "I don't have to hide myself in shame all of the time, and I finally know what it feels like to be... cool, I guess."

"Cool?" I asked skeptically. "You are like the opposite of cool. What happened to you? You used to be a fun person. You..."

"Let me handle this, Xenia," Haley had popped up from seemingly out of nowhere. "This requires a mother's touch." She turned to Kien and put her hands on her hips as if he really was her son like we pretended that she was. "Kien!" she yelled. "What the hell do you think you're doing, boy?"

"I'm saving the world, mother, I'm sure you would understand if you had the full story," he replied from the top of the hill. It was a good sign that he still remembered that small detail of his life. The family that he had crafted was still on his mind. He remembered that Haley had been his mother, and hopefully he remembered that I was his daughter. I took it as a sign that he could be saved from this insanity that he was going through.

"Then explain it!" Haley called back. "We can have a mother-son talk if you want."

"That'd be great!" he called, walking forward a few steps. He turned back to the blonde, walked back, kissed her, then stepped back down to us. His expression was gleeful, and slightly reminiscent of the old Kien, but it had a new over-confidence that was entirely unlike him. He walked with so much swagger, it was like he had something shoved down his pants. It was saddening how far this had gone. It was saddening how I escaped from their clutches and ended up seeing this.

When they were going to move us, each prisoner with two bodyguards, it was still night. I used my power over the night and caused the monsters to smash into each other. Then I created a shield aroung my self and started running. The shield helped me become invisible in the night, and provided protection against projectiles and melee weapons. Soon I found myself in the middle of the forest with no weapon and no help.

I breathed deeply and focused. I knew that the night could provide me with almost anything that I needed, even pizza. But that wasn't on the agenda. I raised out my right hand and imagined my staff from camp was in my hand. Soon enough, a familiar number 2 pencil appeared in my hand, and I grinned. I pressed my finger against the number 2 and watched my staff extending in my hands. I left my protective shield on and fell asleep in the forest, invisible until the dawn.

Dawn arrived, and the shield dissipated, causing me to wake up instantly. I bolted upright on the forest floor and moved some of the stray strands of hair from my face. The forest seemed entirely devoid of life, except for the sounds of nature. It was calming to know that some wild places hadn't been disturbed yet... then the fire started.

The crackling of the fire reached my ears before my eyes perceived any threat. The entire forest was quickly burning, and I cursed. In the far distance, I finally noticed the sounds of battle. Swords on shields and battle cries filled the air, and I rushed towards them, even if it meant going straight through the inferno. It was regrettable, but there was no way that I was even remotely able to fight the fire. I didn't have any water on me, and I couldn't just summon it from somewhere like Percy would have. So I ran as fast as I could until I reached the edge of the forest. There were monsters everywhere, even inside the forest. There were giants in giant armor, waiting to get into the fray. There were hellhounds that foamed at the mouth, giant scorpions, giant spiders, snake women, telekines, and other things I had never seen before. There were just so many.

I stealthily crept my way past all of them. It wasn't too hard, since they were all suffering from battle anxiety, and the desire to devour the half-bloods that I saw were holding them off from what looked like the caravan of wagons that I had been in prior to my escape. I also noticed that Thalia, Percy, and Kira were at the side of the hill, talking to a young, beautiful woman with blonde hair. Instinctively, I headed in their direction. I had the distinct feeling that something important was happening there, and one that involved me directly.

That choice took me there, to where I saw Bryce and Kien both still very alive. Both very, very evil and different. It didn't seem real, probably because they weren't, but I knew that I had to do something when the time came. For the moment, perhaps Kien would spill out the entire plan to Haley, and we might have a chance to stop whatever doomsday the Friends of Nature were planning.

**Haley: I Have a Little Chat with My Son**

"So... what exactly is going on here?" I asked, wrapping my fingers together and resting my chin on my hands. I had a feeling that it was going to be a long talk, considering how much stuff had gone on. "I mean, joining the Friends of Nature, what are your goals?"

"We plan on saving the Earth," he informed me, laying back against a tree. "We're going to begin by awakening the Earth with the sacrifice of seven maidens. We already have three. Let's see... there's Red and then there's Georgie... oh, and Lexi. We had Xenia, but she escaped." He tapped his finger on his chin. "I suppose we can always find more somewhere, so it should be fine. Gaia will awaken and she will restore the Earth to the glory that it once had. All of the global warming and pollution will be gone."

"And do you know the death toll?" I asked, disturbed that he should go so far. Awakening the Earth was serious business. Sacrificing maidens, especially ones that you knew... that was very serious. I didn't know how he could have gone so far. He had been a nice guy before his alleged death. He had become some sort of psychopathic maniac. But he was still my son, and I couldn't let him do something that stupid.

"About... I want to say 4 billion, but I don't know if there are that many people on the Earth yet," he thought for a moment. "Well, mostly everyone is going to die, but a few thousand, maybe a millions will live."

"And you know exactly what you're doing?" I asked, outraged. "You're becoming a murderer! Is that what you want? Those people have lives that you are goiong to destroy when you awaken the Earth. They're all going to disappear from this Earth, and you're going to watch as they all have their lives taken away from them! How could you?"  
He sighed and shook his head. I thought that I had him. "Oh, Mother," he sighed. "We have to save the Earth. Have you seen what humans have done to her? They've used up all of her materials and are still looking for more. She's given them everything, and they don't give in return. They've polluted her atmosphere, melted her ice caps, and built towering smog cities everywhere. Humanity must be stopped and taught a lesson before they can destroy anything else in the universe."

"Humans make mistakes," I told him, knowing that he always believed in that and accepted it.

He shrugged. "Just because it was an accident, it doesn't mean that they won't have to be punished. We learn from out mistakes, Haley. The survivors will know what to do when the population goes back up again. They'll know not to mess with the Earth. Hopefully, she will rise up and destroy the gods so that she will rule the Earth, as she should. Western Civilization's destruction will lead to the rebirth of the Earth in a new and beautiful way."

"And I thought that you were still in there somewhere, Kien," I sighed. "I guess that I was wrong. Kien would never kill so many people just to save the Earth. He believed that everyone deserved second chances to make things right. And here you are... killing the people so that the Earth can rise." I stood up and brushed the dust off of my jeans. "Well, I know a lost cause when I see one. Bye, Kien."

"Haley," there was a desperateness in his voice that I had never heard coming from this new Kien, and I whirled around to face him. His eyes were contorted in pain. "I can't... fight it... the sword... of Hades..." He gave a gasp of pain and fell onto the floor, clutching at his head. "Bring me back!" Then he froze and slowly got up. He looked at me, his expression slightly puzzled. "Weren't you leaving?"

I nodded slowly, and left, looking for Nico, or some other child of Hades that I might pass the news onto. My Apollo oracle instinct was tugging at my gut. Something was very wrong with Kien. It's like he was still dead. Kristy had told me that his soul had passed on into Elysium. He should still be there. I had to get an Iris message to him. If he was still there, then that meant that this new Kien was a fake. That meant that all of the others could be fakes as well. It meant that there was a chance that I could get him back. It meant so many different things, it made my head swim with the sheer amount of different possibilities. There was a hope in me that I hadn't felt in a little while. Maybe he wasn't really evil. Maybe my son hadn't really gone over to the dark side. It was a sort of freak chance, but a freak chance is better than a no chance. I knew that much for certain.

I reached into my pockets, trying to find something I could use to create a rainbow. It didn't matter that the battle was in full swing around me. I needed to get this done. Amazingly enough, there was a prism in my pocket. I knew I hadn't put it there before I left, so I knew somebody was watching over us. I pulled it out and held it into the light. I frowned, and set it on a tree stump. I stepped back to observe my handiwork. It looked as if it would work just fine. I pulled a golden drachma out of my pocket and threw it into the rainbow. It disappeared and I muttered, "Goddess accept my offering." The rainbow gave a slight shimmer to signify that the connection would work.

"Kien Phan in Elysium!" I yelled. The rainbow shimmered a different hue, and the image of Kien staring intently at me suddenly appeared. His face brightened the moment that he saw me.

"Haley!" he screamed. "Mom! Thank goodness you found out that I was really dead."

Even though he was technically dead, it was good to see him again... the real him. "What have you been up to?"

"Not much," he admitted. "Just trying to stop my evil clone from destroying everyone on the Earth. I can watch through his eyes, because that was my old body. That's why we cremate bodies. That way, we don't have to see all of that stuff. The image is really vague, because you're working with a mostly terminated connection, but you can still sort of see and hear what's going on... and I don't like what's going on in my body one bit."

"I would think not," I giggled. It was so hard. I was so giddy. "I mean, you're all buff now, but you're trying to save the Earth by destroying all of humanity. That's sort of messed up."

"I know you already know this, but you have to stop him," Kien informed me obviously. "Get a child of Hades to use their father's sword to tap me. That way, I'll be able to come back into my body. I don't know how much that will do, but I think it's our best shot."

"You'll be alive again?" I gasped, brimming with happiness.

He smiled. "For a little while. I... I don't know how long I'll last. The sword can lock and unlock death with a tap, but the time for that... I just don't know, Haley. I'll do my best with the time that I'm given. Good luck, Haley. I hope to see you soon."

"Good-bye, my son," I bowed to the rainbow.

"Farewell, mother," he bowed as well. "May we all live through this challenge to come."

**Thanks for reading. Please review. I know there are some readers out there, and it'd be nice to see what you guys think.**


	10. Chapter 10

**CHAPTER 10**

**Brooke: Liar!**

"So…" Kira began, confusion written all over face. "He… he really is dead? And so…"

"His body has been reanimated," Haley explained patiently. "And I don't really get it too much, because he didn't explain it too well, but somehow they've used his body as a sort of zombie puppet thing…"

"You don't sound too certain," I commented. "I don't think I believe it too much. We all don't like to believe that boys cheat and lie to us, but honestly, it happens, and we just have to accept that." The grip on my crossbow tightened. "And besides, why would they animate him? Why would they animate boys in general? I know that Sasha is powerful and all, but she can't do that. She isn't a daughter of Hades, as far as I know."

"She wasn't," Thalia broke in. She had been nearly silent since the battle had ended. The monsters had generously saved the forests, and Grover and Sasha had ordered them away to spare our lives for some reason. It was illogical. A child of Athena had to be wise, and my intellect was telling me that something was up. I didn't like it at all, but that was the fact of the matter. She was trying to destroy all that we had worked so hard to accomplish in the past thousands of years. The Earth… what motive did she possibly have?

"She was a grand-daughter of Zeus and Poseidon. She was one of the most powerful half-bloods born in the past century or so… maybe longer. That is, before Star's birth. The thing is… Star seems to be her daughter… with a son of Hades."

"Nico?" Percy was shocked. "That can't be right."

"I don't think so," Thalia sighed. "It's not something that he would do… or she would do. Sasha is devious, but she isn't that devious. She has her limits… I would hope."

"So do I," Percy mumbled. There was one thing that I liked about Percy, and that was that he was actually one of the few people that hadn't cheated on his girlfriend yet. I mean, even my half-brother, one of the supposed "wiser ones" had crossed over to that. I was not even slightly proud of that. He had actually been an okay guy… until now.

"Why don't all of you just accept the fact that all of this has happened, and focus on trying to stop them," I demanded. "And we haven't even rescued the hostages yet. We're supposed to be on this. I mean, they have ANNABETH."

Percy stared at the ground. "I want to rescue her, but information is always useful… right?" He swallowed. "I'd do anything to get her back, but that doesn't mean we can win if we don't know what's going on… I want her back, I really do… I just don't know if we can under the circumstances."

"What circumstances?" I demanded. "It's pretty simple to me. They kidnapped Annabeth, and are trying to take over the world. Now we stop them. It's pretty simple, if you ask me. It's a sort of thing that we deal with, with some frequency as half-bloods."

"It's different this time," Percy sighed. "This time they have Annabeth."

"I... I..." he stared at the ground. "Don't make me answer that."  
"Because you wouldn't, would you?" I attacked. I felt slightly bad for it, but it was necessary. I had to know the weaknesses of one of the greatest heroes that we'd ever had, and ever will have. I had to know how far I could push him, and what I could depend on him to do. Last year, I hadn't been very high on the command ladder, but following Calvin's death, I became second in command of the Athena cabin. Following Annabeth's kidnapping, I had taken the position of Athena leader, and therefore, the tactical leader of the entire army. It was a huge responsibility that I wasn't prepared to take lightly. Lives were at stake. It was an honor, and a public service to do this.

"And so you succumb to your fatal flaw," I said darkly. "Percy, to save the world, you may have to sacrifice the love of your life. Is this acceptable?"

That isn't to say that it was easy. It was one of the greatest challenges ever faced by a single mortal. On my call, people could die. On my command, the entire world might be saved. There was the fine balance to maintain. Then there was also combating the part of me that wanted to keep that power and use it for things that I never wanted to... like revenge. I could have any of my ex-boyfriends court-martialed or followed in an instant. It was a tempting position to hold.

"Lay off of him, Brooke," Thalia cut in. "Nobody can predict exactly what's going to happen... Nobody wants to have to choose something like that in advance."

"I need to know how far I can push him," I tried to explain myself. "What if I push him too far? What if I ask him to do something that he can't do, and he fails?"

"That's no excuse," Thalia spat. "Nobody knows what to do in a situation like that. Do you?"

"Yes," I answered smugly. "I would save the world and give up the person that I love."

"Do you even know what love is?" Percy asked quietly. His dark hair covered most of his eyes, and his fists were clenched. "I doubt that you've ever truly loved anyone, Brooke. I know what love is. It's what Annabeth and I share. And I know that I wouldn't easily give her up for the world, because she's my whole world. Giving her up would mean losing everything that is me to save everything that is somebody else's. If I lose her, I lose all meaning in my life. You've never felt that, Brooke. That is why you're so willing to let it go."

"That... isn't... true," I protested weakly. But I knew it was. I had been hurt too many times, hurt too deeply to cared bout anyone like that anymore.

"Isn't it?" Percy asked quietly. "When you get your answer, you'll make a fine commander. But until then, I'm reinstating myself as Commander in Chief of the demigod Army."

"I..." I couldn't think of anything to argue, so I dropped it. It was true, after all. He was the original head of the army, and he had the power to take back that power whenever he wanted to. He had just been on an extended vacation for awhile since the last crisis had ended. "What are your orders, sir?"

Percy smiled, briefly. "Then his expression hardened into cold determination. "Our first order of business is to find out how to stop these people from destroying the Earth. Then... then we're going to save Annabeth." He sighed. "Thalia, call a meeting back at base, and arrange for some pickup. I don't want to walk all the way back."

"Helos already inbound, sir," I said with a salute. "I called them in to pick us up before this started... And I apologize for having my logic flawed earlier... It wasn't my place."

"You're forgiven, Brooke," he said softly, putting his hand on my shoulder. "We've all gone through some pretty rough times recently. I can't blame you, not after what's happened to your various friends, boyfriends, and siblings."

"We'll get him back," I muttered. "We won't let him be remembered as a villain. He deserves more than that."

"Don't they all?" Thalia asked with a sigh. She chuckled bitterly. "When I died, they hailed me as a hero. They shouldn't have. What Sasha said is true; I... I did convince her to leave. I was jealous of her and Luke, and I let that get the best of me. It WON'T happen again, Hunter's honor."

"I believe you, Pine Cone Face," Percy smirked. "I believe in all of you guys. We're going to do this. We can save her, and we can save the world... er... Western Civilization and humanity."

A demigod ran towards us, then stopped and saluted. "Sir, transport has arrived," he said to me.

"Tell that to the general," I pointed my thumb at Percy, who smiled. The demigod blinked twice in confusion, then he also smiled, and raised his hand in salute. "It's good to have you back, sir. Transport has arrived."

"Copy that," Percy laughed. "I'm going to have to get used to this." He sighed again. "But that'll take time. Right now, we should load up, head to base, and plan our next move... I just hope we won't be too late."

**Xenia: Cheated**

It's hard to even breathe knowing that he cheated on me. Of course, the gag doesn't help either, but that's beside the point. He had me believing that I was the only thing in his entire world, but all he did was let me down. No apology, no notice, just a nice quick stab through the heart.

Even worse was the fact that he was one of the people assigned to guard us. He flirted with Georgie, Lexi, and Annabeth with no regards to me. I'm just glad that Georgie and Annabeth were ignoring him completely. Lexi, on the other hand,was flirting back. Just watching her and Bryce flirting made me want to punch something, but just looking at him made me to weak to do anything. Sure, he'd cheated on me, but the time that I spent with him had been the best of my entire life. I just couldn't bring myself to hate him.

"Is the cell comfortable?" Bryce asked Lexi as he leaned against a pole.

"Kinda," she replied as she stretched out her legs seductively. "But I'm thinking your quarters would be much more comfortable."

"Oh, they are," he grinned as he appreciated her smooth legs. "How would you like to come there sometime?"

"I'd love to," she crossed one leg over the other. I noticed that she was the only one that wasn't bound at the feet, and wasn't gagged. It figured. All of the guards wanted a piece of her. It looked like one was about to get it.

"How does tonight sound?" Bryce asked immediately. "Maybe we can work on getting those arm binds off... and maybe some other things."

"I'd love that," she said with a wicked grin.

"Then I'll get my quarters ready," he said as he opened the door of the closet and walked out. It was injustice to be kept in a hotel and bound in the closet. It was even worse that Lexi was going to get in bed with my boyfriend. For a moment, I actually thought that Lexi was okay. The past summer had been nice ,despite the various attacks, and we had gotten along well. Bu t now, I saw what almost everybody else saw; a boyfriend-stealing whore who would do anything to get in bed with a guy. Any guy.

I glared daggers at her, but she was too busy getting ready to notice. She was fluffing up the front of her shirt so that more of her boobs spilled out. It sickened me thaat she could do that without remorse. Annabeth had a blank expression on her face as she watched, while Georgie looked disapprovingly. But in the end, none of us could really do anything about it. Lexi was going to have him, just like so many boys before had her. Another conquest, another victory for Lexi Clarke.

As Bryce came in to pick her up for their night in bed, he didn't even look at me. He was too busy staring down the front of Lexi's shirt. He didn't look in her eyes like he did to me. She wasn't staring back at him like she was staring into his soul. There was no love there, only lust. At the very least I had loved him truly. I had given him everything, and I was worth something more than Lexi. I was worth more than just one night.

But if that was all he wanted... If I gave that to him and it got him back... would I have given it to him?

**Percy: Another Rescue**

As the helicopters touched down back at camp, it was hard to believe thatit was the same place. There were medical personnel everywhere. Mostly it was the Apollo kids, but there were also a few adults that I had never seen before around. They couldn't be mortal, of course, because the camp's barriers kept mortals out. Chiron later provided the explanation that these adults were half-bloods that hadn't been discovered in their youth, and had gone to serve in the army, among other places.

Military was popular with many half-bloods, especially because they couldn't do many other jobs, being mostly unable to read. Children of Ares, of course, always loved to get in a nice fight.

I must have walked past hundreds of demigods assembled on the camp's grounds. Some injured, some not. I didn't even know that there were that many demigods on the face of the planet. But then again, there were many surprises out there. A lot of these people had probably never even known it until maybe a week ago. And here they were, assembled with a whole ton of weapons.

"Quite a setup we've got going, Chiron," the moment I met him at the Big House.

"Yes," the centaur said sadly. "I never thought that we'd have this camp this militarized. It is... saddening."

"Really?"

He nodded. "Camp Half-Blood has always been a place for young heroes to train, learn, and be accepted for once. It has always involved a degree of risk, of course, especially over the past few years, but I never really wanted the camp to become... a military base."

"I think I know what you mean," I said as I surveyed the sight. I didn't see anybody playing capture the flag, or even tag. The basketball hoops weren't in use, there were no happy campers around. The satyrs weren't chasing dryads through the forests, nor were the Hephaestus kids doing any metalwork. "It was as if the life of the entire camp had disappeared into its new, army post. Heck, there were even helicopters grounded around the place. "We might be able to go back to the way things were before, after this is over," I told him.

"I sure hope so, my dear boy," he sighed once again. "War... it is not the way that the camp was born. It is a vile thing, a senseless and brutal thing. It is necessary, and it has happened many times, but it is not what this place is for."

"You admit that you prepared us for battle, though, right?" I asked. "We needed to know that."

"Battle and war are two very different things," Chiron said sagely.

"Mr. D couldn't care less, could he?" I wondered.

"Unfortunately so," Chiron replied, his eyes glassy. "He's stayed inside even more than usual. Though, at the least, he is tending to the strawberries a lot more. But... unfortunately, he does a lot of yelling as well.""

"Sir!" somebody yelled from inside. "We've got a telephone call, and I think it's important!"

"Put it on speaker," I ordered as we headed into the Big House The information control center of the new operation.

There was no one talking, mostly just the sounds of some sort of scuffle in the background. But it dawned on me... maybe this wasn't a person who had time to say anything. Maybe they had been captured and somehow managed to reach a telephone before the kidnapper caught them. Maybe it was one of ours.

"Where are they?" I demanded immediately.

"We're working on it, sir," somebody said from inside the room. "They're at some sort of hotel... in Des Moines."

"Iowa?" I was confused. "Do you have a fix on their location?"

"Ye, sir," he replied.

"Excellent," I t felt good to be in command again. "Get the hell hounds ready for shadow travel... we have a rescue mission to conduct."


End file.
